The Newly Awoken
by redyucca
Summary: Finn, Rey and Luke all heal past hurts with the help of each other and the force. (FinnRey and Rey Skywalker)
1. Chapter 1

"Come in, Finn."

Finn paused mid-step in his pacing and glanced across the hall. The door remained sealed. Finn, by all reasonable reckoning, should've found this unnerving: the general calling to him from within soundproof walls. Strangely though, he was comforted in his bewilderment. It meant he had come to right place.

"You may enter, Finn. Pacing won't do you a lick of good."

Finn stared for another second at the door, took a deep breath, and held his new ID card up to the scanner at the door's right. He stepped into the room and up to the General's desk with precise and snappish footfalls, his arms held straight and loose at his sides, his hands curled, and, hopefully, his face blank. She didn't look up at him, using one hand to sign off on the emergency supply runs delivered a few minutes before, and using the other to twirl a set of stones in the air in increasingly intricate patterns.

He waited for her to speak, keeping his eyes on a spot next to her left ear.

She rolled her eyes and said wryly, "At ease."

He complied.

She let the stones drop as she reached for her comm. "Supply run ready. I've included some new additions. Uploaded to central database."

A reply buzzed, "Affirmative, General. I'll let Snap know."

She then tossed her communicator unceremoniously onto the desk and leaned back in her chair with a sigh.

"Alright, Finn," she said, with a welcoming wave. "What is it you need at so late an hour?"

The General and Finn were the only pair left in the central command room of the recommissioned New Republic Naval ship (a welcome gift to the Resistance from a terrified government only just now waking up to their supreme vulnerability). The skeleton crews were rarely made up of tacticians and bargaining leaders and had no business to be anywhere but the bridge, engineering, and battle stations. A maintenance droid, recovered from an old First Order base, was scrubbing along the wide floor, a familiar sound to Finn who had once been worth just as much to his peers and commanders. It was possible that Finn was still an equal to the mouse droid in the Resistance, in operational value if not intrinsic worth, but that would only be because of the significantly higher opinion everyone outside the Order apparently had of droids.

The room was dark but splashed with a purple glow from a nebula drifting in the void outside the window. It was quiet.

Yet Finn could feel Leia amongst the emptiness. If he closed his eyes and covered his ears, he would still know she was there. She was a solid presence of warm gold just beneath the surface of everything he sensed in the room. This was what he came here for.

"I wanted to speak to you in private," he said, still not meeting her eyes.

"And why is that?"

"I want to be reassigned," Finn blurted out, resisting every urge in his body to slap a hand over his mouth for speaking in such a way. He took a moment to breathe deeply and consciously through a wave of nausea threatening to overbalance him. He remained upright and shut his eyes against the noise in his head.

I'm allowed to want. I'm allowed to want. I'm allowed to want. I'm allowed to want.

He opened his eyes and instantly knew he had taken more than a moment to collect himself. He met the General's eyes and saw a similar shade of sympathy to the one that crossed Poe's face frequently, as much as the man tried to hide it.

"You're going to have to give some good reasons as to why you want a new assignment," she began, a small smile taking away any edge that would have accompanied the words otherwise. "We could really use some leadership in our ground troops. Your hand to hand and blaster expertise are already worth quite a lot to the cause - add that to the frankly unprecedented score on your tactical aptitude test..."

Finn could hear echoes of past examinations, of former squad leaders sizing up his body and talking over his head to Phasma about what a good soldier he was. The General's steely eyes were shifting in front of him into a chrome, emotionless surface and the soft blue of her vest was melting into gray.

Shoving aside the repulsion he interrupted her, saying sharply, "I won't be what they made me."

He wrenched his gaze from her, gaining strength in his conviction. He watched the mouse droid scrub out of the room, no doubt to gossip with the rest of the droids, as BB-8 had once told him, in confidence, that maintenance droids are fond of doing. Leia patiently waited for him to collect himself again, demonstrating yet again that everything Finn had ever learned about authority was neither absolute nor prescriptive. This obvious distinction of attitude between his old Captain and the woman in front him helped him push forward with his request.

"I was being packaged for command. I was Phasma's favorite," Finn began again, less heated. "I only learned the things I know for, well, for survival. I was only selected for the command track because I was already set apart from everyone else. But, General, I promise I can do so much more than lead ground troops. Not that there's anything wrong with them!" He placated quickly at her slight frown. "I'm - I'm honored you would consider me an asset to the Pathfinders and others, it's just, I've been keeping something from you, mostly out of habit, because it's kind of big deal, maybe, I'm not entirely sure, that's why I'm here, really, to make sure, to ask you to maybe consider helping me -"

"Finn," she said gently, eyes slightly wide. "How can I help?"

A piercing note of tension grew distant in his mind at the simple question. He relaxed enough to take a deep breath before saying, "I think I'm just going to show you."

He let his head drop forward and folded his arms behind his back. He focused in on a single dirty smudge on the floor between the toes of his boots. He held one breath in for as long as he could handle, then let it go slowly. He imagined taking off his armor. With another breath he started letting the tight coiled rope bound around his limbs unwind. Starting with the muscles in his feet, ankles, calves, thighs, wrists, arms, shoulders, the top of his head and his chest, and finally his stomach. They all fell away and for the first time in years, the world around him came into focus.

He looked up at Leia and her eyes were shining, a sad grin stretched across her weathered cheeks.

"Finn," she asked softly, "Is that you?"

Now the empty room was not just full of Leia's solid presence, stony gold yet shimmering with dark blues and velvety greens, but now held Finn's liquid presence as well, yellow and pink and so bright, like sunlight on an ocean at dawn. Finn felt his way through the room, touching the essence behind chairs and tables, tasting the air with splashes and sprays. He hadn't been this free since he first discovered this affinity all those years ago as a child, desperately wishing for a different life than the one he had been dealt.

Leia stood up, wading through the waves of his mind unbound and came to him. She reached up and with a shaking hand brushed away a tear from his face.

"You are so brave, Finn," she whispered. "To be this strong in the Force and to have kept it a secret for so long. How did you do it?"

He shook his head and simply replied, "I had to, I suppose. I always new I had to keep it from them. When I was little, it was a refuge. I thought it was a fantasy land that only I could access. I kept it a secret at first because I didn't want them to take it all away."

She grasped his hand as he spoke and he felt so warm and welcomed in that moment, it was getting more and more difficult to speak.

"There weren't any Force-users around at the time. When…" he paused, "When Kylo Ren joined the Order, I had already developed the habit of keeping it wound up. They had him inspect the ranks, once, for potential recruits into the Knights of Ren. I was so terrified, it was probably what distracted him from my abilities."

Ironically, (if he really wanted to think about it) if it hadn't been for the intensive training he and the other troopers had gone through from childhood he would never have been able to keep his ability under lock and key. The discipline and unwavering physical exertion allowed him to let out the Force and it's power over him, through him, in small ways everyday so the tight bounds he kept on it never suffocated, just shielded. He put the extra work in with the blasters, with the tactical training, with the medical training, with it all, but he also put in whatever he could so as not to drown in the power of the Force.

He didn't know it was the Force until they taught him about the shameful fall of the Empire, about Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. By that point, he had already known that eventually he was going to run away.

"I want you to teach me," he said, squeezing her hands. "Please, I don't know much more than hiding it. I want to help."

Her cheeks, normally pale, and her eyes, normally withdrawn, were alight with recognition and purpose.

"Of course I'll teach you," she said fervently, releasing him and darting around her desk to open a drawer. "I never became a Jedi, not fully, but I can teach you the basics and even show you all the ways to use the Force even if you aren't a Jedi. We'll start right away. I've got a few books I think will be very helpful to understand and tomorrow I'll show you some meditative techniques and of course we'll have to start you on saber training right away, though I'm sure you'll pick it up very quickly, you're very clever, I can sense it in the Force, even -"

Finn's heart fluttered at the thought of lessons with her and at the bright smile she kept sending his way as she dug through old datapads and reports. The steely gold aura outlining her face and hands was pulsing with what Finn assumed was hope. He suspected this was a fundamental building block of the General, of the person that she was, and now it was shining. It was shining because of him.

Tears were leaking from his eyes again but she just kept talking.

"I'll reassign you to my side, of course, until Rey and Luke return, and you can decide then what you want to do," she said, handing over the collected educational items in a neat stack. "I know you expressed interest in becoming a medic when you were assigned to the Pathfinders, so, if you want, you can still do a bit more training under Dr. Kalonia. Luke told me that many of the old Jedi used to be healers, and, Finn-" she placed a hand on his shoulder, slowly so as not to startle him "-you have the soul for it. For healing, I mean. You remind me so much of my brother, before all this happened. Your heart is powerful. Don't forget that."

Finn lifted his right hand to hers and held on through the waves of her understanding and compassion.

"Thank you, Leia," he whispered, looking down at his new reading material.

"You deserve more than this war, Finn," she replied. "But while we're here, I'll give you whatever I can."

Finn nodded, eyes still cast down. His back ached and burned, he was exhausted, bodily and mentally fatigued from his physical therapy and constant nightmares. He sometimes felt as if he was drowning in all the noises of people, so many free personalities, so loud and foreign. He felt more and more alone the more he learned of the things he had lost the day he had stolen. He missed the phantom family he never knew. He missed Rey.

At least in this, he could finally feel secure.

At least in this, he could finally feel safe.


	2. Chapter 2

"One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes..."

\- John Muir

Luke shoots up from the ground, cries out in pain as tears blur his vision, and then immediately falls to his knees. He desperately shifts into a meditative stance, his body seeking peace. The death of Han streaks across his mind, freezing his breath, twisting the muscles in his chest. He pulls his clenched fists up to his face and presses his knuckles into his eyes. There isn't a thread of reality that makes sense to him anymore. His sanity is lost.

A breeze blows through his hut and the moist sea air cools the lines of sweat on his forehead and chest. In the scent of the ocean he can smell fish, algae, briny stone, and the heat of life. The island is steadfast against the clash of waves. The roots of grass pulse as they dig deeper and deeper and deeper…

He returns from his meditation slowly.

Han is dead.

* * *

When Luke first arrived on Ahch-to, he was instantly reminded of his childhood landscape; horizons observable and a merciless sun.

"Here," he had said to that vast emptiness, to the nobodies inhabiting the island. "Here I'll be safe."

Safe from himself, safe from others, safe _to_ others…

The semantics at that point had barely mattered to him. All he wanted was to be essentially safe in every way conceivable, essentially _something_ he had not felt in some millennia.

For six years, Luke had been on the run. For six years he had been in a desperate flight from a galaxy that was simply too big for him. For six years, he had stayed just ahead of the wave of pain and sorrow, threatening to consume him and corrupt his power. He had traveled across nearly every system, working as a mechanic, a bar tender, a cargo pilot, an engineer, and sometimes just sat on a corner in a seedy little town, destitute and exhausted, a beggar praying for an end. Luke spent six years attempting to unmake himself and to slowly deconstruct his identity, until he was something new.

For six years he had not been a Jedi, had closed his mind, in the hopes that somehow he would find peace. But all it did was leave a strict binding on his thoughts and contain his ability to sense or feel anything. He found he was losing precious memories of his family, growing numb to the cruelest of actions, and edging closer to the darkness he needed so desperately to transcend – for his sake and for the sake of the galaxy. He needed a place to reach inside himself again, and this lonely ancient island, the first Jedi Temple at last, seemed a good place to do it.

The first night there, he had prayed in silence for the memory of his Aunt and Uncle, praying in the way of Jedi for the first time in half a decade. All night he knelt over the cliffside, calling forth their names from the conscious 'other' of the Force, the unnamable blue land from where Obi-Wan and others had many times spoken. In the morning, dawn broke over his face and he knew the island had been blessed with their strength and care. As the sun rose, he recognized that old feeling of being protected (a feeling he had found somewhat stifling in his steadier youth), and under the spiritual memory of his long deceased guardians, he fell apart for the first time in decades.

Piece by piece.

His body shook, he could feel his bones quaking beneath his skin, he could smell the edges of his hair burning at the tips, and old scars on his body - long since healed - reopened and bled.

But on that island, under the solid blessing of Beru and Owen, under the compassion of thousands of years of Jedi souls, sheltered by the immensity of the ocean and its thick salty air, his immense power, quaking and destructive, was felt only by him. That had been the reason for his self-imposed exile, of course. He had done the right thing. His pain and its power would corrupt no one.

The dawn was cold on his face. His tears ran in a silent stream down his cheeks and nose. Crying was a miserable relief.

The next thing he did was search for the entrance of the Temple. He could feel its presence beneath his feet as he crested the steep hills of the island, but he couldn't figure out how to get in. After a several hours of walking up and down the rough inclines and pushing through the dunes on the island's north side, he was prepared to push the hunt off for tomorrow. He'd been silently shedding tears throughout the morning, unconsciously, and filtering old memories, let loose in his mind once more. He was emotionally exhausted and Owen and Beru's blessing was like a warm blanket – coaxing him into a long and healing sleep.

Just as he was about to climb back up into his ship, a burst of blue light splashed across his path, very much the same hue of the force spirits he'd encountered. It bounced in front of him a few times then started to float in the direction of the crumbling stairs on the cliff. He followed it, of course, without hesitation.

It led him up the stairs about halfway, before turning abruptly and bouncing brightly across one of the lower hillsides. Luke struggled to keep up, his boots unable to find good purchase on the steep hill, the grass still slippery with dew. When he caught up to the little light, it was hovering under the shade of large mossy boulder situated among many.

Somehow, Luke knew what to do without prompting.

He reached out a hand in front of him and reconnected with the Force – establishing that connection that was now so foreign yet so familiar. His power rushed through him and he closed his eyes against the wave, clenching his jaw under the strain to contain it. Shakily, he focused it on the boulder. He touched it with the Force, greeted the vibrant moss inhabiting the weathered stone, and then asked it to move.

It shot into the sky and imploded. Luke had just enough time to throw an arm over his head before he was showered with small stones and charred moss. There was an nervous squawk of birds nearby and the distant sound of a host of wings suddenly starting to flap at once. Then there was a moment of heavy quiet while the world settled down.

He raised his eyes to the little blue light, horrified by what he had just done. The light just bounced around happily a few times in front of an exposed carved doorway in the mountain side. It was clearly not carved by nature.

Luke stared at the entrance and felt a thousand sobs building up in his throat as he surveyed the debris of his destruction. He raised his mechanical hand to his mouth as the light circled around his ankles and then darted through the ancient door to the Temple, inviting him in.

Luke turned on his heel and walked away.

That night he couldn't sleep. Nor the night after.

The blessing of his Aunt and Uncle wasn't strong enough to keep him safe.

* * *

Luke mourned for weeks. He mourned for months. He avoided the Temple and instead focused on surviving.

He gently placed his grief into every action, situated pain on his hands so he felt it when he gathered kindling, sparked a fire; when he ground clay and sand together to patch up an ancient hut; when he wound traps for fishing, sharpened stones for carving; when he laid out his clothes after a thorough washing. He ate grief with his mealy legumes and dried salted fish and old nutrition packs stored on his ship.

He felt that it was his responsibility to feel, just as it was his responsibility to feel it alone. As he always had from the beginning. With love comes pain. To deny one is to deny the other. To deny one part of reality is to deny reality as a whole. From the moment he had followed Obi-Wan from the burned corpses of his family he had assumed the raw deal of obligation; obligation to everything.

He shed tears for his students, their innocence and curiosity and pureness of emotion - always one extreme or the other, but so changing and mutable that they gained wisdom quickly. He didn't have to do much more than provide a framework for their free minds to use as they explored the boundless universe and roamed the depth of the force. Their compassion came easily, for they _wanted_ a world built on empathy. He shed tears for his sister and the ways that she had to be strong for an ungrateful world and how that made her a fighter before anything else; her struggle would always be a war that no one else was willing to see. He shed tears for his daughter.

For his daughter he grieved the most.

What he had lost with the loss of her -

There was no healing. That would remain raw until every star grew cold.

Luke avoided sleep as well, whenever he could. He felt as if he was walking on a hair-thin line, tip toeing across a vast chasm that boiled and splashed with all the hate and resentment other people were allowed to fall into – but not him. He had to walk the line.

He was fragile. Every moment of every day he was on the verge of tears. He had thought, naively, that once he allowed himself to grieve after six years of feeling nothing at all, it would be a relief. But the struggle to eat, to clean his clothes, his body, the struggle to live was now foregrounded in his mind and it was exhausting.

Yoda would lecture him.

"Go to the Temple, you must," he would tell Luke calmly as Luke sat on the beach trying to think of nothing at all and blind himself with the sun's reflection on the water.

Obi-Wan would stand over Luke when he lay on the cramped cot in his ship, blanket over his head, wishing he had never come to the island to confront his pain. He would tell Luke pointless tales for as long as he could stay, about the Wars and being a young Padawan in the days of old. If he was trying to give some cryptic non-advice, per usual, Luke wasn't paying close enough attention to get it.

Anakin would just follow him around, sit silently by his side or walk a distance behind him as Luke aimlessly traveled from one end of the island to the other. Anakin didn't really know how to handle loss, his only attempts in his own life being ultimately self-destructive, and had no wise words to give to Luke.

Luke ignored them all.

He knew without their hints that he had to restart his training again. Long bouts of exhaustive meditation were not enough for him to fully regain control of his powers. But even the thought of stepping in that hallowed Temple made him dizzy and truly frightened him. It gave him that same irrepressible surge of terror in his gut that he first felt as he stared into the flames viciously ripping apart his school.

After months of this, of presence only through pain, of self-hood made only of shed blood, of hearing Leia's desperate pleas echoing in his mind each night ( _she needed him there, with her, she needed to find him, where was he)_ Luke was raw and starving. More malnourished than he had ever been in the six years of poverty from before and so overwhelmed by his own mind that he frequently found himself lost in places on the island he had no memory of walking; waist deep in the ocean, dangling his legs over a bluff on a cliff, digging a deep hole in the beach for no discernible reason – bloodied hands, stars above, and just cold, wet sand being exposed to the night with each mindless scoop.

 _This isn't healthy,_ he would think, watching the blood drip from his knuckles onto the shimmering sand below. _This isn't why I came here._

He had a responsibility to cure this illness. He couldn't be what was needed if even the slightest hint of suffering made the tips of his hair start to burn, if his broken heart couldn't contain itself and leaked out into the real world, abusing the Force by lashing out in destruction.

So one typical morning after a few months on the island, with no particular new motivating factor, he walked determinedly into the ancient temple, his bare feet disturbing ancient layers of dust and his breaths echoing around the enormous dark room, he sat under the highest ceiling of the temple and tried to gain control, _control_. He strained with every inch of his mind to rein in the wave. He tried to hold the Force, not be held by it.

"Do or do not, there is no try," Yoda's ghost said, appearing in front of him in the gloomy hall.

That, ultimately, had been the moment that doomed him.

"Perhaps _you_ should've _tried_ a little harder!" Luke burst out, finally letting go of the beast he had caged when his daughter was stolen from him. "Then maybe none of this would've happened!"

He felt himself fall off the thin line. Bitterness and hate and resentment and pure destructive heat was eating up his soul. He was rage. He was anger. Every breath he breathed was fire.

Luke unleashed it all.

The ancient architecture only withstood the waves of his power through the influence of its Jedi history, but the hills above the temple groaned and their grasses caught on wildfire. The atmosphere sparked with charge and the air dried, moisture seized and expelled far out over the sea. The rich muddy earth chapped and cracked and bled magma. Luke, through the tormented red of his emotion, noticed his own prosthetic dripping thick blood, the cauterized wound, that had closed instantly upon its formation, bleeding for the first time. His rage grew in the memory of his father. As if summoned, Anakin's ghost stepped into his line of sight -

"You must remain calm," he said. "My son, you must -"

Luke would rather die than hear another word from the man- he waved his right arm and Anakin vanished with a shocked shout. Some part of him was suddenly alarmed at this ability to dismiss a Jedi ghost and he latched onto that alarm, feeling that was the way back to sanity and control. He forced his untethered mind to remember Leia and her pleas, the voices of his students calling out for help, the betrayed and terrified face of Rey as he left her, the whole galaxy of fighters and beings wishing for peace in war - He needed to be compassionate - he needed to suffer with - to ground himself in life – he had to walk the line –

That's when he felt the soft touch of a strong hand on his brow.

He opened eyes he hadn't realized he had closed and then felt the world shift. The walls of the trembling temple shimmered and became the muted colors of his childhood home, the roar of the wind and sea faded away into the immersive silence of the desert, and he felt the heavy history of his life lift from his body - old aches and injuries vanish - and he looked down at the skin of his arms made anew. His right hand was flesh and blood and young.

A giant woman sat in front him, mirroring his kneeled position, a small quirk of a smile on her lips and sad serious eyes looking down on him. He realized at once that she wasn't giant, only that he was small.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," Luke replied in a quiet voice, high pitched and childlike.

She grinned down at him, looking very much like Leia.

"Hello," she repeated, delighted.

In the back of Luke's mind he knew this wasn't real, that he was a middle-aged man sitting in a cave close to crumbling, half out of his mind, on his way to a Dark he had never known - yet most of Luke's awareness was here, in this body, unconscious of the Force and his history. His mind was as childlike as his voice. So when a friendly, familiar woman grinned at him, he, light-hearted, grinned back.

"Hello," he said, giggling at the silly game.

She raised her arms and held them open.

"May I?" she asked and Luke ached at once for a hug. He launched himself into her arms, wrapping his own around her neck and the smooth braids running down her back. She scooped his small body up and squeezed. He was pressed against her warmth and could feel the rumblings of her laughter against his chest and stomach.

"Oh, Luke, my son," she whispered. "You're such a beautiful boy."

e pulled back, still grinning and giggling, to look at her serious eyes again. She brought a hand up to his face and lovingly pushed back his messy hair from his forehead. Luke suddenly recognized her face from some old holos of a queen of Naboo. This was his mother. _Beautiful, but sad._

"I wish I could've seen you like this," she said. "I wish I could've heard your laugh."

Luke frowned and brought his own hand up to touch her nose and cheek.

"Don't be sad," he said. "Hello," he entreated, hoping the game would make her smile again.

"Hello, Luke, darling." She smiled and Luke felt triumphant. "I'm sorry we never were able to meet."

"It's okay," he said.

"I wish I could take care of you properly," she said, pulling his legs out from under him and catching him in the cradle of her arms. He giggled as she showered his face with kisses and one of her hands tickled his sides. He felt warm with her joy and the safety of his family's home.

"It's okay," he said again, when she relented and he had caught his breath. "I can take care of myself."

She was sad again but her smile was proud.

"I'm here, Luke," she said quietly, under the echoes of their laughter from moments before. "I'm here and I believe in your goodness. Do you understand?"

He nodded, but he didn't really understand.

"I believe in your goodness because you are my little boy, I made you and held you and gave you life. You have taken on the burden of thousands, the burden of the Balance, the burden of the Last and the First, but you will never belong to anyone more than you belong to me. I will always be with you and your sister. _This_ water is thicker than blood."

Luke was growing colder and the muted walls were fading but her eyes were clear and bright as day. She was smiling still, full of love and happiness. Luke felt his own smile grow, and for a moment he didn't know fear, had no understanding of even the concept. All he knew was his mother and her strong embrace.

"Let go, darling," she continued in that same quiet voice. "Let go. You are my boy. You are a grieving father. You are a man. You are limited. You end with the boundary of your skin and you don't have to be anymore than that. Nothing more and nothing less."

Her face and body were ringed in a golden light.

"Hello, Luke," she said, laughing in delight. "I named you."

Luke didn't understand what she was saying but he could see that his time with her was vanishing. He surged up and clung to her shoulders while she squeezed his protesting ribs.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

"I love you," she replied. "As big as the starry sky."

The temple had gone still, the cavernous walls no longer under threat of demolition. He could hear the fire raging above him, feel the life of the grass and soil giving up in the flames. Luke breathed once, then twice. As he watched his moist breath curl through the stagnant dry air, he realized that things can't remain broken forever. Change will occur, Nature will happen.

He hung his graying head and cried.

The storm clouds above the island pulsed and released the rain, the wind blew again, and the scent and protection of the sea returned.

He wished he could hold Rey.

* * *

His ship had been crushed by some falling rocks of his accidental bit of annihilation. Though reparable, it would take years to get it up and running again. In a burst of petty frustration he dropped a few extra boulders on it, making his self-exile complete. He trusted that Leia would be able to find him with Artoo's help, if he was truly needed. He'd already sent Artoo the last portion of his map. Anything else was now truly beyond his control. _What's a few more years of absence, anyway,_ he thought, _when I've already been gone six._

He started to rebuild the Jedi training in his mind, shattered to pieces by the death of his students and daughter. For six years, he had only built walls around the wounds and ruins; all that had accomplished was self-sabotage and destruction. His control was weak, his emotions high-strung and stressed, and his trust in the Force had to regrow, from the beginning.

He meditated frequently in the ashen field his pain had burned. Though the wildfire had never reached the forested land below the apex of the hill, the grassy plain had been full of life and its destruction was still a loss. He meditated in the crispy soil, nearly barren, summoning old memories of rain and bursts of growth in springtime.

As is the way of Nature, the earth started anew in a few months' time. First mosses lent their rich scent to his breath, soaking in his exhales. They paved the way for hardy sprouts and their flowers. The ocean just beyond blew in moisture and sunlight peaked past gray clouds to warm the newly muddy plain. The stone, once scorched, wore soft green and yellow lichen. Life pulsed and breathed. Insects started to sing.

Luke put himself back together, day by day. He had nearly reached a point of no return in his Force abilities and he painfully drew himself back to his body, to the physicality of his own life and self.

The ancient temple, excepting the grand hall, was pure ruins – though, fortunately for his peace of mind, it had become that way through time and neglect, not his own brief breakdown.

He walked gently through the halls of the past, looking for an understanding that had long since eluded his self-education in the Jedi ways. Most rooms and halls he found were much like the first. If there had been carving or decorative reliefs, they had long since washed away with rain and wind and the crumbling habit of rock. The walls were always cool and wet to the touch, the stairs traveled deep beneath the surface of the island (a few even leading to the shore), and the Jedi consciousness he had felt the moment he stepped off his ship months ago never got louder than the wispy breezes on his ear. He had been to many ancient Jedi sites over the years, but this was a different type of old. This was the kind of old one felt at the base of a mountain or on a space walk with a nebula in sight. It was very nearly the kind of old that he thought belonged solely to the stars.

After a week and a half of exploring, he found a room with clear writing on the wall. It was a circular room, halfway below the mountainous surface to the sea, with windows covered in fresh moss. A few birds had selected it for their nests.

The words he couldn't read, the characters of the language completely foreign and incomprehensible. He briefly thought of asking Yoda, Obi-Wan or his father for assistance, but quickly dismissed it. Their Jedi Order fell. It was unsustainable, even in the reformed practice of Luke's own Jedi school. Their wisdom could not replenish the wells inside him or fill in the gaps of Jedi history. This was the _first_ temple, the very beginning. Whatever was learned here, discovered here, was originary. It wasn't even seed, it was soil.

The images accompanying the writing, unlike the words, were clear if cryptic. He knew what was being depicted but he didn't know why: lightsaber forms, but no lightsabers. Each image was a humanoid being engulfed in a wave, or perhaps a burst of light – it was a depiction of pure energy, he knew that much. The images of the wave or light shifted incrementally and beneath each new form, the humanoid shifted, too, in mimicry. The pattern repeated, the energy and the humanoid body equally malleable, as they were depicted in the weathered and solid stone. Each image was just slightly different from every other one around it, and Luke, stepping back, was able to recognize a familiarity of shape in the lightsaber forms first learned by younglings, the forms that first taught younglings how to trust their bodies and the Force as it acts through them.

Luke dropped his cloak and lightsaber in the doorway and started to mimic the forms. He followed the curves of the images as they ran around the room in continuous circles, winding in layers, starting from the top of the ceiling by a window, until they finally met in the center of the floor. The complete cycle took Luke nearly an hour to complete, but the exercise felt wholesome and didn't scare him away from his own body.

The last image was that of a humanoid kneeling in meditation. Luke collapsed next to it, exhausted, and gazed out at the sunset on the horizon. A strangeness of being came over him, a feeling from years before, familiar. He had felt the same way as he gazed across the double sunset of Tatooine, longing for something intangible.

It was a singularity: the sun setting on a horizon of sand or water, and Luke gazing beyond the warm glow. He had imagined when he was younger that he could see past the horizons and the suns, past the boundaries of his human sight.

 _It's an illusion, a fantasy,_ Luke said. _All I'm seeing is the sun._

* * *

Peace grew softly. Unobtrusively. It couldn't grow any other way. Some days Luke woke from nightmares, tortured by the screams of those he loved and those he had never even met. Some days, going through the meditations and the forms was similar to dragging himself and Artoo through a swamp. Some days he was incapable of getting up. Even more, some days he felt the temptation of that destructive rage from before, that bitterness, that voice that would say, " _This isn't fair",_ instead of saying "This isn't just." _Moral Codes are not fictions, don't let resentment poison them,_ he would remind himself. _I am capable of pain because I am capable of love._ And then he would go tend to his garden or force-pull the waves on the shore.

The soil was cool to the touch on his skin but warm when he opened his touch to the force. He could practically hear the machinations of life burbling in each soft handful. If he closed his primary senses, the moist dirt of the forest and the saline water of the ocean felt the same, so full of life and accepting of change and so dependent on balance…

Some days he was even happy, in a limited sense. Desperation and sadness didn't claw at his throat, his bones didn't ache with stress, and his appetite for living and well-cooked fish was strong. Some days, the wind blew the hair off his face and he could feel his mother's laughter against his chest, Owen's protective hand on his shoulder, Beru's proud smirk in his mind's eye - he could feel Han's embrace and Leia's fingers entangled in his - he could feel Rey's soft, downy hair, pressed under his chin - he could feel all this, and it didn't break him. He could remember without drawing in shame and guilt.

One day, in the sparse field of new grass, atop the highest point of the island once more, a bird landed on his head while he sat in meditation. Unwilling to disturb it and even a little frightened it would fly away again, Luke became the essence of stillness. He reached out in the force for the experience of stone and sought to emulate such solidity.

Another bird soon joined the first. After a few minutes of deep concentration, Luke found himself surrounded by his feathered friends and splattered a bit with their feces. One bird took the brave plunge and landed on his lap. He met its eye as it twitched and hopped about in that avian way, unhappy on the ground. Struggling to contain his amusement and the laughter building up beneath his ribs, Luke breathed deep and called on the force to lift his body in the air.

Very slowly he rose. The birds perched on his shoulders, head, arms and knees were mostly unbothered, ruffling a few of their feathers but otherwise totally at peace with the new shift in altitude. He was floating perhaps his full height off the ground when three more birds landed on his lap. He wondered suddenly what Leia or Lando or Han would say if they could see him now. Hovering in the air, covered in at least a dozen cute birds, flicking their tails and poking through his hair.

He burst out laughing, the vision of their equally horrified, smirking, and baffled faces flooding his mind. The birds gave a collective indignant squawk as they leapt from what they thought was a silent floating stone, leaving more gifts of excrement behind. A few came back, even as he continued his obnoxious guffaws. He let himself drop back to the ground, forgetting to cushion the fall, so he could laugh in earnest. He could see the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Anakin attempting to catch his eye, but he ignored them.

He calmed down when he remembered Rey floating with him in a similar situation, her warm little body clinging to his neck but bravely looking down at the ground below, bravely trusting him with her safety. In the aftermath of such a comedic moment, a normally devastating memory became soft, painful yet cherished. As he washed his clothes later, he laughed again. Occasionally the chuckles turned to sobs, but it was mostly laughs.

 _Leia,_ he thought, _will be delighted to learn about the lengths of time I've spent scrubbing bird shit off my clothes._

* * *

Rey had been dropped off on his doorstep, a few years after he had started the Jedi school. At first he had thought the parents were mistaken, that they were misinformed by information from the old Order, which forbid familial connections to the younglings once they had started training. He searched for them for a year.

He had searched for a year, but it had taken precisely one minute for him to adopt Rey in everything but name. He had lifted her into his arms and she had thrust her sticky, chubby hand into his mouth, fingers going up his nose, giggling like mad, smelling just a bit of soiled underclothes, and he had decided then and there he had never encountered so wonderful a person in all his days.

It was exhausting taking care of a baby, but the exhaustion was such a different kind than Luke was used to experiencing, so full of the promise of commitment and family and love and legacy, that he was grateful for it - in between power naps. He wasn't run ragged with battles and rescue attempts, flight training or strategy sessions. He was run ragged with an energetic spitfire who loved more than anything to swing from his shiny right hand or play nonsense games with a lot of running and shouting, who particularly loved the challenge of distracting Luke from his meditation by increasingly inventive means. (He was never really meditating, already thoroughly distracted from the moment she appeared in the room.) He traveled frequently, and would hold her in his lap every time they jumped to light speed, his heart glowing with her powerful glee. Luke had never imagined that flying could get better, but it did with Rey.

Artoo adored her, of course. She wasn't quick on picking up the binary, but, for possibly the first time in forever, Artoo didn't mind. When Luke had to work, Artoo would lead her on treasure hunts or allow her to chase him in a game of tag. She had recognized Artoo's unique consciousness immediately, without any guidance from Luke, making Luke more proud and in awe of her than he had ever been of anything.

He found realness in struggling to feed her greens, in struggling to get her to go to bed on time, in struggling with her hair and her clothes and loud babbles and stories when he really needed to concentrate or sleep. She hated baths, thought boogers were hilarious and flatulence even more so and was an overall dirt-ball of a child who hated wearing shoes. He loved her for it, but by Force, it drove him mad. After she dirtied up the last of the pretty dresses he had made her, he had given up entirely on nice clothes, thinking, _She certainly doesn't take after me_ (an entirely nonsensical line of reasoning, but he was in love with being a father).

She had asked him one night why one of his hands was shiny. Though he had started her force training a year before, she didn't know much of his history. He didn't allow her in the Jedi school - perhaps out of foresight, perhaps he was just being overprotective - and kept her monumentally secret from the public. To her, he was "dad" or, more frequently, "daaa _aaa_ aaad." Or "father" when she had a question she felt was serious. Like now.

"Father," she began, making eye contact with him over her storybook.

"Yes, daughter," he said in an equally solemn tone, moving from his chair to sit beside her on the bed.

"Why is one of your hands shiny?" she asked.

Luke had a brief internal crisis in which one part of him moralized on the importance of honesty and the other started to list the merits wrapping Rey up in soft blankets and keeping her away from the world.

"I lost my first right hand a long time ago," he replied, hoping she wouldn't be curious. In vain.

"How?"

"I was in a dangerous fight," Luke said. "It's a very long and complicated story that I won't tell you right now, but I want you to know that I'm not in danger anymore and neither are you."

She looked keen on starting a protest but Luke made all her plush toys start dancing in mid-air and she was sufficiently distracted.

Also, he suspected, she really liked his shiny hand and didn't want any story to poison her against it.

* * *

Time went by steadily. He kept track of the days, by both Ahch-to and Coruscant reckoning, but otherwise paid them little attention. Surviving took up most of the hours he was awake: finding and growing food, maintaining his water supply, fixing up his clothes and shelter. He chose life, committed to it, and on this wilderness island in the middle of a planet made mostly of sea, it required a concerted effort and most of his focus.

He enriched his relationship with the native birds, letting them rest on his shoulder and gifting them with scraps of cloth and clumps of his own hair for their nests. They seemed to appreciate the gesture, and a least several of them always hung nearby, as if they knew he needed the company.

One in particular must have taken a real liking to him, because it would attempt to gift Luke with nesting material in return, dropping in Luke's outstretched hand some twigs or dried seaweed, before perching itself on top of Luke's head. Luke suspected it just liked the warmth of his body, but feeling the bird's little chest puff with each tiny breath against the crown of his head was the greatest new pleasure Luke had encountered in what was nearly a decade, so he was completely grateful either way.

Remarkably, this bird (who Luke had taken to calling Master Bird, or Master B for short), would find Luke when he was at his most fragile and lend its own warmth to Luke when he most needed it.

It was safe to say they were friends.

* * *

Luke trained his mind and body, not actively seeking to find any essential truths of the Jedi of old, but opening himself up to stumble upon discovery. He wasn't racing against time here, trying to master a discipline before the galaxy falls under the oppressive thumb of a supreme evil power. He wasn't learning for the sake of victory in war. The ultimate goal wasn't to win. He was doing what he should've done long ago. He was studying for the sake of studying and he was taking his kriffing time while doing it.

He knew that eventually he would be needed once more, that the galaxy was still under threat. But he also knew that the galaxy couldn't rely solely on him to extinguish it. He was limited and mortal. Not only was this too great a burden for one man to bear, it was an untenable solution to the ultimate problem. He needed to train more Jedi.

He needed to be healthy enough in his own force abilities to do it.

He was still shaky most days, when he summoned his lightsaber to hand. He hadn't ignited it since he had arrived on Ahch-to, only practicing his forms without the blade. He required meditation every day in order to stay afloat. Some days he couldn't even lift a pebble with the force, and others he found if he concentrated enough, he could lift the island with his rage and grief. He hadn't tried it. He didn't want that sort of power.

Luke was starting to feel sympathy for Yoda, that old menace, in a surprising twist of fate. Before, he could not have imagined staying alive for as long as Yoda did, for the sole purpose of training the last hope for balance. Yet here he was, doing the same thing (only with a lot less pretension and moral relativism).

He couldn't be the last Jedi, not when there were those who abused the force. There needed to be a check on that power of equal measure, not an aging man who could barely look at a lightsaber. Leia had long since rejected the Jedi path. There would have to be others. She would send them along, eventually. All he had to do was wait.

He was content with this. Grief was a constant companion but he was growing more and more familiar with presence of contentment, as well.

All he had to do was wait.

* * *

Han was dead.

Han had been murdered. Luke knew it fiercely.

Billions of lives had been snuffed from the galaxy, and Luke had felt their pain, panic, terror, fury and sudden absence like a suffocating blanket of blinding white-hot death. He had fainted in his hut from the pure pain of it. Inside of his mind he heard only the sound of lightning, cracking over and over and over, with no relief.

Then hours, or days, later (he didn't know, he was delirious), he was awoken by a streak of Han across his inner vision: Han surprised, betrayed, dying, dead, all in the space of a few seconds.

He should've been prepared for this, really. A couple days earlier, he had snapped out of his meditation because he felt a spark across the galaxy awaken in the force, bright and full of love and compassion, a spark he hadn't encountered since he felt all of his students lose theirs. And nearly a day later, he had felt another join it. They were together, he could feel it in their joy, and the first experience of pure hope he's had in possibly decades erupted in his heart. There was an awakening and they were strong. He wasn't alone.

But then there was a massacre of unprecedented size.

And Han was dead.

He should've expected this. Things don't always happen incrementally, like grass re-growing or rock turning to sand. They can happen in flashes, in blinks, all at once.

Han was dead.

* * *

The day after Han's death, Luke broke his daily routine. He dressed in his Jedi robes, attached his lightsaber to his belt, and went to wait on the cliffside, blessed four years ago by Owen and Beru. The waves were their normal tumultuous selves, the sky shifting in the windy atmosphere from cloudy to blue to bright to a welcome shady gray. A few birds floated by him, greeting him in the avian way, and he meditated with his mind on the peace of dark soil, rich and full and warm.

Master Bird settled on his shoulder as he waited.

He felt Artoo first in the Force, followed instantaneously by Chewbacca. They burst into his senses, and he was overwhelmed by memory until he registered the spark (the second one) who was accompanying him. She felt familiar, like a scent in the air he's almost forgotten he -

Loved.

His knees buckled and he coudn't breathe. It couldn't be. He would've known, he would've _known,_ if she had survived. It was impossible. Improbable. Implausible.

 _This is too cruel,_ every voice in him cried, _this is the cruelest thing of all. I can't handle this. I am not built to withstand this._

The ship landed and he would recognize those particular engines anywhere, more familiar than his own face.

She was coming closer and he could now see the way she was masked in the force for so long. He could sense the layers of loneliness built up over every inch of her heart and skin. He managed to stand but tears began to prick his eyes. He could feel the vibration of her every step. He could hear her breath, growing heavier and more strained the higher she climbed.

He closed his eyes and reached out to Leia, to his mother, to Owen and Beru, to Obi-Wan and Anakin, even to Yoda, for even the recollection of the _idea_ of strength.

She was there, behind him.

He slowly turned around and lowered his hood, every movement painful, unable to take in a satisfying breath.

She was there, in front of him. Sad and strong, young and grown, his _child_.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out a lightsaber ( _Anakin's,_ he noticed, bewildered, his right arm twitching), holding it out to him with a pleading expression.

 _Pleading for what?_ he though _t. Does she recognize me?_

He made his way down the slope to her, in a trance, and took the saber from her trembling hand with his left. His heart was beating so wildly he was sure it would burst and he would be consumed. He turned the saber over, snippets of old memories weaving their way across his mind rapidly. Delicately he transferred it to his right hand and held it out to her again. Her eyes caught on his prosthetic and they were suddenly filled with confusion, pain, and tears.

"Rey," he said, voice broken in every way it could be. "Rey. You're -"

She choked on a sob as she searched his face intently. He could see her face lighting up with recognition, recognition and betrayal and longing and fear. She was clearly having difficulty breathing.

"Rey," he tried again. "You're alive."

She nodded, one of her arms lifting and her shaking hand extending out, as if she needed touch to believe what she was seeing.

"Yes," she whispered. "I'm alive. And you, you're, please, I don't know - "

"I'm your - "

"Family."

Luke nodded. He reached out with his own hand and brushed her rough fingers with his metal ones.

"Yes, Rey," he was whispering now, too. "I'm your family. I'm your father and you're alive. My child you're alive -"

She threw her arms around his shoulders and he wound his arms around her waist ( _too thin, has she been eating, where has she been, she's alive, she's alive, my Rey, my daughter, my child)._

"Father," she said into the folds of his cloak.

The word sank into his bones, past all the years that had past, straight to the last of the white-ice that had frosted over ten years ago. He closed his eyes and remembered the sturdy sprouts in the muddy soil, the sleek black wings of the birds on the island, the dark warmth of his bird friend perched in his hair, and the ocean, ever loud and deep.


	3. Chapter 3

"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?"

\- Marilynne Robinson

Rey wrung out her rag and let it drip a moment before leaning forward and laying it gently on Luke's chest. The chill from the storm was heavy. She hoped Ahch-To's cool air was good for his burn.

She could see a lattice work of other lightening scars across his torso, slightly raised and pale red – indicating that they hadn't been allowed to heal properly. And now, right above his sternum, there was a new lightening wound, a mottled circular burn inflamed on his skin.

Luke could now brag about having survived two Force-lightening encounters. One from Emperor Palpatine, a Sith lord and one of the cruelest men to have ever existed. Another from his own daughter.

The Force worked in mysterious ways, she's been told.

* * *

Rey only had vague memories of her father. Or so she thought. She'd been young enough when he disappeared for her memories to confuse her. As she got older, the more she was convinced that they were fantasies.

And she had quite a lot of fantasies about a man in an orange flight suit scooping her into his lap. Or sitting on top of that same man's shoulders, looking across a blonde head to a very blue sea.

She had dreams of an island. An island that promised…belonging. A bit of home. Maybe.

This island, she thought.

Leia had sent her with some pretty ambiguous instructions. Though Rey could read the desperation coming off Leia, in the Force and in the strained edge of her left eyebrow, all Leia requested was, "When you find him, do what you feel is right."

These instructions were contrary to what the rest of the Resistance seemed to want from her. And from Luke.

"Bring him back," they all said. The small handful of Resistance officers, the Republic representatives (now very concerned about the First Order, as opposed to their previous mildly), some of the now devastated pilots who had watched half their fleet fall away in the last battle – they all looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes. Some of them even seemed a bit angry.

One pilot cornered her while she waiting for Finn to get out of surgery to say very darkly, "When you find that Jedi, let him have it." Rey wasn't sure why exactly he was so angry, but there did appear to be an undercurrent feeling in everyone's anxiety about Luke Skywalker – besides Leia, Chewie, and a nice man named Wedge (and Han) – that Rey identified as betrayal. It seemed strange to Rey that so many people would collectively feel betrayed by one man. Especially when she couldn't sense that same edge of betrayal in those who would presumably care about Skywalker the most. Those whom Skywalker would've had the most obligation to, in Rey's opinion. But the ways of most people were really a mystery to her. So much quick judgement based on so little. It was very confusing.

In the Force (Rey was glad to have a name for it now), she could sense they all needed something and they thought perhaps that she had it. That she could give it to them.

It was this heavy expectation that ultimately helped convince her to leave so soon.

Leia had difficulty pulling her away from Finn's side to show her the completed map. The idea of not waiting for Finn to wake up from his healing sleep was initially repulsive to her.

"Commander Dameron will look after him," Leia said, resting a small hand on Rey's shoulder and nodding in the direction of a man, fidgeting in the doorway, shooting Finn very anxious looks. BB-8 was silently rolling back and forth in front of him. Must be who Finn rescued from the First Order, Rey thought.

Rey just shook her head at Leia and turned back to Finn. She picked up his hand. It was too cold.

"I can't leave him," Rey said. "Why can't someone else go get Luke Skywalker? Why not you? He's your brother."

Commander Dameron said from the doorway, "I'll just wait outside, then."

It was a nice gesture but the Resistance didn't necessarily have the funds for an actual door or actual privacy. He just closed the thick curtain. Rey could still see BB-8's round body peeking underneath the folds. She kept making concerned beeps, a noise more closely translated to worried sighs than words.

It put Rey a little on edge – to be surrounded by so many people. Constantly. She'd only been here a few hours.

Leia sat on the chair next to Finn's bed (Rey was perched on the edge of it, comforted by the feel of Finn's hip pressed to hers), and, in an unexpected gesture, dropped her head wearily into her hands.

"I can't go, Rey," she said into her palms. "I've got to stay here."

Rey didn't really understand the weight that sat on the General's shoulder. Leia's duty was too abstract. Rey knew very well that the First Order was bad. She knew someone had to stand up to them. She admired the Resistance for doing so. But Luke Skywalker was Leia's family. And friend. That was the sort of obligation Rey understood.

"You are the next hope," Leia said, lifting her head and fixing her steely gaze onto Rey's. "There has to be balance. You must find him. He can help you."

Rey felt tears spring to her eyes. Fear slithered across her mind as she felt the rising edge of her new power seek to assert itself. She gripped Finn's hand a little stronger. She wished he would squeeze hers back.

"I know this is a lot to put on your shoulders," Leia whispered. "I know what it's like to be as young as you and – "

Leia paused and look at their clasped hands.

Rey turned away from her compassionate brown eyes. She was tired and wanted to lay her head on Finn's chest, as she had been doing before. Listen to his breathing.

"Perhaps I don't know, entirely," Leia continued. "I know what it's like to have your entire planet ripped away from you at the tender age of nineteen. I was very young then - younger than you in a lot of ways. I thought shutting out any sort of love and connection was the solution to my pain. Han, that brat, did his best to not let me. And Luke was there for me, always, no matter how cold I could sometimes be. I sense that you haven't been young like that for a long time."

Leia got up and placed one small hand on Finn's forehead. She stroked gently with her thumb.

"Neither of you," she said, though Rey thought she might now be talking to herself. "Both very young, really, but both so old. Something has aged you but, look at you. Still so ready to love…"

Leia shook her head and pushed her shoulders back. Rey watched her transform back into the General, the unyielding Princess from all those old stories.

(It suddenly occurred to Rey that Leia could never be anything but a Princess – she'd been robbed of her chance of being Queen. This seemed very sad, to Rey. That Leia would always carry Princess around as a memory and an empty sort of promise.)

"I know you want to help the Resistance, Rey," she said. "This is how. Find my brother. I don't know what he's been doing these past ten years. I hate to ask more of him than has already been asked of him. So just go. Do what you think is right. He'll help you with your power. And maybe you can help him."

Rey swallowed and asked, "What about Finn?"

"I promise you, Rey," Leia said, leaning down and holding onto both of Rey's shaking shoulders. "I promise I will look after him. I promise I'll help him. He's a good man who's clearly been gravely mistreated. And I'm quite sure that Commander Dameron is already making friendship bracelets, so you know he won't be alone."

A muffled and affronted gasp came from behind the curtain followed by an amused titter from BB-8.

Leia called over her shoulder, "Don't pretend, Dameron. We all know it's true."

Rey found herself smiling. And feeling like Finn was in safe hands.

Leia perhaps sensed this because she let go of Rey's shoulder and said, "Come find me when you're ready. The Resistance needs you to leave as soon as possible but we can certainly spare you a few hours to sleep, eat, and get some clean clothes."

Rey nodded and turned back to Finn once the General had exited. She finally gave in to her weariness and curled up beside him, pressing her forehead to his bicep. Her brain fizzed with pleasure at this small amount of contact. It had been very long time since she had felt such warmth.

Later, after kissing Finn's forehead and giving BB-8 the very emphatic direction to take care of him, Rey made her way onto the tarmac. Chewbacca was waiting for her, silent with his grief but still a very supportive presence in the Force. Artoo was hovering around him. Threepio had told her that Artoo used to be a vulgar chatterbox but had basically shut down after Skywalker had vanished. She could sense the loneliness in Artoo – she was surprised by his level of sentience. Not that he had it, but that he wasn't locked into hiding it. He wasn't programmed to defer his sentience to his mechanical function. Even more than BeeBee, he was very capable of acting independently.

And even more than that, he felt familiar. So familiar that it hurt in her chest.

Artoo rolled up to her and she placed a hand on his dome.

"Have we met?" Rey asked. Artoo merely beeped something like Let's find Luke, and bumped her leg affectionately. Whatever their connection, Artoo seemed unwilling to explain, so she simply started to follow him onto the ship.

"May the Force be with you," Leia called.

There was a power in that, the words in Leia's clear voice, that calmed Rey. She breathed in and walked up the ramp.

She hadn't been able to sense it the first time, perhaps too caught up with the overwhelming sensation of meeting Finn, but the Millenium Falconhad a funny aura of swagger to it. Like it knew it looked like junk but also knew it was one of the fastest ships in the galaxy.

It felt like Han.

She recognized the island. For the first time since deciding to leave, since looking at the complete map to Ahch-To, she felt a bit of her reluctance fade. This was her island.

It was real.

Suddenly, her mind started filing through her old fantasies. Were they real too? Were they memories?

She tried not let her new doubts engulf her thoughts. She was nervous enough as it is.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked Artoo and Chewie once they had landed and she started up the path. She couldn't see another ship anywhere, but something was telling her that someone was on this island.

Artoo seemed to sense so as well because he replied I'll see him, soon. Chewie must have been privy to whatever Artoo knew because he just told her they would be waiting. She wondered if he was also unwilling to part with the ship for any extended length of time. (He hadn't left it once, when they were back on base.)

So Rey trekked up the island by herself.

People had clearly lived here before. A community of people, not just the one. The ancient dwellings and stairs intrigued her. But the higher she got – and it was certainly a climb, her lungs needed a little more time to adapt to this planet's thin atmosphere and the rapid increase in elevation – the more her head started to ache with memory.

She had been on this island before. It wasn't just a dream, or a fantasy. She had looked out past the green cliffs to the endless sea. And something even more familiar was tugging at her heart. The layers of distrust she had built up over the past decade were keeping a certain spark of recognition shut away. It was painful to probe.

When she finally crested the peak, she saw a cloaked and hooded figure standing just beyond, looking out over the ocean. The part of her mind she had used to access the Force was throbbing. She was so confused. She felt lost.

He turned around.

* * *

In Rey's mind, it was like a strong wind blowing through the still and unyielding desert air, breaking open it's oppressive dry heat and shattering the chokehold it had on her burnt up body. The signal of a storm, rain, actual rain. It never lasted long and it was more storm than water. But on Jakku, those minutes of shade and moisture felt like an eternity of mercy. She had given the experience a lot of thought over the years, recalling rain storms in her mind to release the tension of surviving that would sometimes keep her up at night. The flood of water and mud, just as dangerous as dust storms but, for some reason, much more precious, was something Rey looked forward to every couple of years. Their frequency was almost negligible but Rey remembered each one in perfect detail.

* * *

Clutching her father's shoulders was its own sort of flood. Only this time it wasn't brief and this time it wasn't meant to wipe out any lifeforms in its way, to start the land over. She had no experience for this type of flood. She couldn't breathe. She was drowning.

Being held again. It was better than food. And Rey had been in a constant state of near starving for ten years.

Luke was leaning his head against Artoo's dome, one of his hands still clutched in Chewie's massive one, when it occurred to Rey that her dad, the pilot from her memories, was the legend Luke Skywalker, great Hero of the Galaxy. It solidified certain moments she remembered in her head – her toys floating in the air, a man trying to meditate with her, and many curious others. But it also made this whole situation seem unreal, like someone was going to pinch her arm and she would wake up again to another blistering day on Jakku.

"You're Luke Skywalker," she said, completely dumbfounded. She hadn't said anything after her desperate Father, since arriving, so he looked a bit mesmerized that she had finally opened her mouth.

He lifted his forehead off of Artoo, who was now shuffling about and twittering his glee, and released Chewie, who looked anxious to be getting back down to his ship.

Luke stood and wiped his eyes, fluttering his hands nervously.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose you never really learned my name…"

Rey was trying to meld the image of one of the galaxy's greatest heroes with the strangely sad man in front of her, twitching in discomfort under her gaze.

"No," she whispered. "You were just, well, 'dad', I guess."

At the word, his face looked like it was crumpling from happiness, like he was heartbroken from his own joy. It was intense and Rey was slightly unnerved at the power behind it.

"But," she said, still feeling lost, "you're Luke Skywalker."

She said his name like it had far more meaning than a simple moniker. It did, though. He had to understand that himself. Luke Skywalker wasn't just a person. Not to the rest of the galaxy.

His sadness seemed to grow, but he pushed his shoulders back, in a way that so similar to what Rey had seen Leia do it startled her, and said, "Yes."

Rey just shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts.

"It's a slave name, you know," Luke said. "Skywalkers were slaves until I was born. That's the legacy I associate with my name. I understand it's not quite the same for everyone else, but it's still strange to hear it said with any level of reverence. Perhaps on Tatooine they still remember the name Skywalker."

And abruptly, Rey wasn't as confused anymore. In the same way she had seen Han, Leia, and Chewbacca transform from legends into people, Luke had now done the same.

"Will you train me?" she asked. She felt as if she was asking five-hundred different question with the one. She didn't really know what answers she was looking for, but she sensed that asking was the first step.

"Yes, Rey," Luke said. "I will train you."

* * *

Rey wanted to stay on the island a bit longer. When they had first set off, her plan had been to grab Luke Skywalker and shuffle him onto the ship so she could get back to Finn. Now though, she wanted to absorb some of the strange peace of Luke's island. She wanted to retain this new experience of safe. She wanted to keep her father to herself, just for a little while, before he was grabbed up by the galaxy again.

She was torn between this and wanting to get back to Finn. The anxiety of it threatened to split her in half. The novelty of having multiple people to worry about was also overwhelming.

Then Luke placed a hand on her arm and asked, "What do you want to do?"

Perhaps if Finn hadn't just recently shattered Rey's old rule of Don't Rely On Anyone, then Rey wouldn't have opened up to Luke. But Finn had come back for her and now Luke was here, asking Rey to rely on him. So Rey, pushing through waves of unease and years of emotional habit, attempted to answer his question.

"I want to stay here, but, the Resistance needs you and, there's Finn…" she trailed off. She had no practice explaining her feelings. And Finn was a lot of feelings she didn't really know how to articulate.

Luke Skywalker, though, in a stroke of luck for everyone in the galaxy but him, was a terrifically powerful Jedi. He could sense her emotions without probing her mind. (She knew what it would feel like if he did try to probe her mind, and she was ready to shove him out with as much fury as she did that monster. But Luke clearly wasn't Kylo Ren. This was more of a relief than Rey could readily admit.)

"Finn is your friend," Luke said and he was smiling for the first time since she arrived without that tinge of deep sadness. "I'm glad you have a friend."

Rey almost laughed at his delight at such news. She knew that conventional wisdom would've taught her that a statement like that would be kind of patronizing, but she felt proud. She was satisfied with his pride in her. For having a friend.

It was ridiculous.

"He's a friend, yes," she said, blushing. "But he was injured very badly when I left. Leia promised she'd look after him while I was gone."

"Of course she will, but you're still worried about him," Luke said, good-naturedly. "We can leave as soon as you wish. I have very little to pack."

"No!" She said, frustrated. "I mean, yes, I am worried about him, but I also want to, to, well, to stay, just a little longer."

He waited patiently while she fiddled with the strap of her satchel.

"I mean," she breathed heavily, "I've only just found you…again…and…"

She didn't have the words. In her experience, words weren't really a useful thing to have. Language, yes, very useful to know a variety of ways to tell a being to kriff off. Words, though. That was for the rich privileged travelers, making a pit stops on Jakku, on their way to bigger and more complicated things.

Again, Luke understood with little effort. Unfortunately, he moved too swiftly for her nerves so she stiffened when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. The sense of him was strong, though. It was nothing but gentle and that weird safe feeling, so she almost instantly relaxed against him.

Artoo and Chewie were silent. Rey could hear the ocean.

She could hear the chatter of birds in the distance. She could hear the wind blowing across the briny rocks and through the soft grass. She could hear her father's breaths and his heartbeat. Everything about the moment fed her hunger.

Her stomach growled. She almost didn't notice – very used to not noticing – especially since growling wasn't really as bad as that malnourished empty sensation that set in and made her head hurt. Luke noticed though and stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders.

"We can stay as long as you want," he said. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

Her instinct was to distrust that promise, but… Finn had come back to her. And she knew now what it was to hold the other end of that promise, as well. She would go back to Finn. The foundation of her instincts had shifted. They rang with falseness. It made Rey nervous, to not trust her instincts.

"Right now, though," Luke said. "I think you should eat something."

* * *

The days were long on the planet Ahch-to, according to Luke, yet the air was very damp and cool.

"This island is on the northern hemisphere, as I'm sure you're aware," Luke explained, as if apologizing for the cold while he moved about the main cabin of the Falcon, gathering ingredients for dinner. They didn't want to waste power so Chewie had turned off the heating on the ship. It wasn't really a problem for the Wookie but Rey, desert-raised and human, needed something extra. Luke had wrapped his Jedi cloak around Rey's shoulders and if Rey concentrated she could hear a nice humming coming off its coarse weaving, like each thread was vibrating with power in an attempt to keep her warm.

She wondered if this was just the nature of Jedi cloaks or if Luke was intentionally influencing the Force around it in some way. He was clearly having trouble looking away from her and kept asking every few minutes if she was comfortable.

It was both endearing and scarily foreign.

Chewie had retreated to his quarters to nap. Rey didn't think he had slept since Han had…

Luke had sensed this, somehow. He had laid a hand on the side of Chewie's head, whispering, "To help you sleep," before Chewie had stumbled off to his large cot. A few minutes later, loud snoring started echoing through the ship. This sort of display would've been disconcerting to Rey if the trust and open affection coming off both Luke and Chewbacca wasn't so tangible. Luke was very gentle.

Artoo was following Luke around as he went through the ship's supplies, offering little beeps of helpful calculation to let Luke know what he should or shouldn't cook in order to stretch their provisions.

"The doctor at the base said I should work up to rich food," Rey said.

Luke looked up from the bag of dehydrated grains he had been examining, his eyes wide. The implication of Rey's words must have been obvious to him, because his face was full of grief.

"I don't really know what she meant by 'rich.'" Rey shrugged awkwardly.

Luke nodded and visibly swallowed.

"I understand," he said, a bit hoarsely.

Then, "Rey, where have you been?"

Rey wrapped his cloak tighter around herself, warding off some unidentifiable chill settling in her limbs.

"Waiting," she said, quietly. "Just...waiting."

She didn't tell him everything. Some memories were for her. And despite it all, she was still unwilling to be so vulnerable.

It still felt good to unload some of the weight of Jakku.

And she did tell him everything that happened in the past few days. Rescuing BeeBee from Teedo, fighting off TIE fighters with Finn, Han Solo and the rathtars (Luke had rolled his eyes fondly and sadly, at that), Maz Kanata's basement, being tortured by Kylo Ren (Luke had put his head in his hands, like Leia, tears on his face), helping Han in the battle, watching his murder, waking up in the snow to see Kylo Ren hurting Finn, calling the lightsaber desperately, the fight, the Force, and collapsing next to Finn on the cold ground – knowing it was too late, wishing she could see his smile again – before Chewie miraculously found them through the dense trees.

"This friend of yours," Luke asked, after wiping away his tears. "Finn. Where did he come from?"

Rey wasn't sure she wanted to tell Luke, a little nervous he would judge too quickly.

"He was a Stormtrooper," she said.

She fixed Luke with an intense gaze, willing him to understand as she explained. "Apparently, the First Order kidnaps them as children, or something, and raises them to be soldiers. They don't even get a name. He refused to kill for them, though, when they asked him to. He escaped by rescuing a Resistance pilot. But they crashed on Jakku."

Luke was taking everything she said very seriously. It was a purely novel experience.

"He refused to kill?" Luke asked, looking solemn and thoughtful, as if he was slowly arriving on the answer to a mystery.

"Yes," she said. "He tried to run. He was terrified they would find him again. But…"

She took a deep breath. This meant a lot to her. She hoped he would hear the significance she couldn't properly articulate.

"He came back for me, after I was taken," she said. "He came back."

He gathered her in his arms.

"I'm glad he did," he said. "I'm glad you have such a good friend. I understand why you are anxious to return to him."

Rey felt the split in her head again and huffed out a sigh of frustration against his shoulder.

"I know you want to train here for a bit," Luke began, "and I think we should start now. I can show you something that might help."

Rey thought, bewildered, This is what it's like having a father.

* * *

They sat on the cliffside after dinner, Rey still wearing Luke's cloak, watching the sun set. She felt full and warm. She tried to concentrate on her breathing, but was having no luck clearing her mind as Luke instructed.

"Don't breathe deeply," Luke said softly. "You're focused on breathing too much."

"Isn't that what you said?" Rey asked, annoyed.

"Yes," he smiled. "But now you're breathing consciously. The human species doesn't have to breathe consciously. It's an involuntary mechanism. You breathe without thinking about it or telling your body to do so. I want you to just watch your body. Sit back and watch yourself breathe, as you do normally without an audience. Take notice of your lungs and the pressure on your ribs. Notice how quiet and unassuming it is. How warm the back of your throat feels with each exhalation. How simple the task. In and out. A simple exchange of gases. The way it feeds your blood..."

The sunlight wasn't an overbearing blanket on her face. It was comforting. It's steady beams, the sweet and serene tones of Luke's voice, the even rhythm of his breath, her own breath sounding so much like the ocean...

Rey felt as if the top of her head was disappearing. She felt as if her body was both vanishing and becoming more real. She became hyperaware of her toes and fingers, her elbows and knees, her hips and the slight rustle of wind through the hair on her legs and arms.

She touched the part of her mind from where the Force flowed and at once her awareness expanded beyond her body. She could sense everything closely surrounding her and Luke. The grass slowly growing and the march of bugs across the soil. The air was suddenly deafening.

She felt Luke's mind reach out to hers and she met him somewhere in the space around them.

She felt his voice echo Now, recall Finn to your mind. Recall the experience of being near him.

Rey followed his direction and after a minute of focus she began to feel the weight of Finn's smile on her face.

Good job, Luke said. I see you two have already established a connection. Just follow that path and you will know.

Rey gasped when the sound of Finn's breathing hit her ears. She could feel his numbed pain and sleepy warmth. It was him.

In her surprise she had torn herself out of the trance, but Luke was smiling at her proudly when she opened her eyes.

"That was a brilliant first attempt," he said. "You have a lot of control over your abilities already."

Rey was still reeling from the experience of being around Finn's mind. In Finn's mind?

"Did I?" she started, unsure how to ask. "Did I read his mind?"

"No," Luke said, a little sternly. "No, I wouldn't teach you something like that. Even if you hadn't gone through what you did. You are simply getting the same impression you would be getting if you read the Force in his physical presence. Through a bond. I suspected from your story that there is more to Finn than you might be entirely aware. A few days ago, I felt an awakening in the Force and I think your friend might have been that awakening. Strong force-sensitive beings will unconsciously create a bond of sorts if they go through an ordeal together or if they grow very close. Leia and I had unconsciously created one before I even knew she was my sister."

"Wait," Rey asked, frowning. "If you have a bond in the Force with Leia, how come she didn't know where you were or how to find you?"

"The bond doesn't reveal location," Luke said. "It only gives you a glimpse into state of mind or intention. You can find someone at the other end of the bond if they are projecting that intent, strongly, but only then. And even so, if the projection is trying to work across light-years of the galaxy, it might not do the job."

"So," Rey said, unsure, "Finn is force-sensitive?"

"Yes, I think so," Luke said. "He can wield a lightsaber against a Force-user and you undoubtedly have a small bond with him. The timeline of his story also matches up with what I have sensed in the Force."

"And with this bond I can check up on him? Without invading his head?"

"Indeed. My own with Leia has certainly been very comforting throughout the years. I hope she recognizes Finn's sensitivity and helps him to find you."

Rey looked down at her hands folded in her lap, a fluttery warmth blooming in her chest. Some of the anxiety of leaving Finn and Leia was dissipating. A feeling of control was growing in her mind and she identified fondness, of all things, for the man sitting across from her.

Luke stood smoothly and offered her a hand up.

"I do understand wanting to be there for your friends," he said. "I'll never try to keep you from them, like my old masters."

Rey hadn't realized that was something she had to worry about.

"Is that something Jedi normally do?" she asked, her mind working rapidly, pure panic climbing up her throat and raising the back of her neck. "Not have friends? Is it bad to have friends? Is that why you ran away, because you were too attached? Because you were too attached to your nephew? That's why Darth Vader turned, right?"

"Rey!" Luke cut her off. "Rey, love, breathe."

She nodded and took several deep breaths.

"Well, you certainly know your history," he said, amused, but Rey didn't have the energy to embarrassed about the things she had apparently always known about her father before knowing he was, in fact, her father. "Where did you learn all that?"

"Everyone knows how the Old Republic fell and then how you killed the Emperor," she said. "Also, people leave all sorts of data behind on Jakku. It's a junkyard. I found some ancient fanmags from the Clone Wars era, once. And Han Solo told me about your nephew. Sort of. He didn't say it was your nephew, but I kind of put it together. After. Um."

A flash of grief went off in Luke's eyes before he blinked and the soft affection returned.

"My father fell for a lot of reasons," Luke said. "His attachment to my mother was one of those reasons, but ultimately it only became a problem due to a lot of complicated factors and extenuating circumstances. Nothing ever really happens because of one reason. Nature isn't determined by one action. Nature is too complex and mysterious to be able to assume otherwise."

The subject matter was growing too abstract for Rey's taste.

"You're glad that I have a friend, though," she prompted.

"The Old Jedi Order was wrong about a lot of things," Luke said. "Including their absurd non-attachment policy. I only said I would never try to keep you from your friends because one of my old masters did so to me. Yoda was quite the menace, sitting comfortably on his absolute philosophies and relative ethics. Maddening, really."

"Who's Yoda?" Rey asked.

Luke grinned, some his sadness dimming in the cheeky edge of his smile.

"Oh," he said. "Just a crazy old swamp goblin who likes to ride around on people's backs."

Before Rey could even attempt to process this, croaky voice intoned out of nowhere, "An ungrateful padawan, you are."

She jumped and yelped, grabbing her staff and swinging it wide.

A little blue being with a walking stick and large ears smiled up at her as her staff swung through the top of his head.

She gasped, "What?" glancing up at Luke who now had his hands on his hips and was glaring down at the transparent blue being.

"Yoda, am I," the being said. "Or, Yoda, was I. Jedi Ghost, am I, now."

Luke said, "Go away."

Suddenly, two other figures popped into being behind Yoda, both blue and smiling widely in amusement.

"She is strong with the Force," the one with the beard said.

"Are you sure she's your daughter? Didn't she die?" the other asked.

Rey gaped at Luke, who had turned his glare to the human ghosts.

"Are you serious?" Luke asked, waving a hand in their direction. "She's only just started to use her powers, and you think it's okay to just appear without any warning?"

"Well," the bearded one said. "We didn't get to meet her before the whole Ben mess. We had to take our chance now."

"Don't avoid the question, Luke. Are you sure she's your Rey?"

"Yes, Father, I'm sure," Luke said, rolling his eyes and looking infinitely younger with the gesture. Rey turned her gaze back to the ghost Luke had called 'Father' and found his piercing stare on her face. She moved a little closer to Luke and tried very hard not to think about Darth Vader.

"How do you know?" Anakin Skywalker asked, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow. "Could be an imposter. Or a spy. Or a Force illusion. I'm just trying to protect you, son."

"Just because you didn't recognize me when we first met doesn't mean I don't recognize her," Luke snapped.

Rey felt a bit like she was eavesdropping until it occurred to her that she was the subject of the conversation.

"He's my father," she said, feeling something fierce in her gut spark with a strange mixture of fury and terror, as if this blue-ish man was going to snatch Luke away. "He is. I know it."

The bearded ghost smiled warmly, his eyes crinkling with affection.

"You're just like him," he said to her. "It's clear to me now. Just like him when he was your age."

Anakin grumbled, "You're far too trusting, Obi-wan."

"And you lost the right to be overprotective when you cut off your own son's hand," Obi-wan replied, a bit smugly, examining his fingernails.

"Great fear, she has," Yoda said, tapping his chin with a gnarled finger.

"This again," Luke sighed.

"Who are you people?" Rey asked, eyeing Luke's prosthetic hand in horror. (His own father chopped it off?)

"Welcome to the family," Anakin said, smirking.

"Old Jedi Masters," Obi-Wan said.

Luke smiled grimly.

"My old teachers," he said quietly. "Or their spirits, in a way. Those who are strong enough in the Force can manifest themselves in it after death. It really is quite the nuisance."

"You've opened yourself up to the Force enough that you can see us," Obi-wan explained happily. "We're here to guide you, should you ever need it."

"She has a teacher already, Ben," Luke said.

"Kylo Ren, your student, was," Yoda said.

"That's bit harsh, Master Yoda," Anakin said, while Luke put his head in his palm. "I mean, Count Dooku was your padawan, wasn't he? Those in glass houses and all that."

"Yes, I think it's important to establish that a student's actions aren't absolute reflections of their teachers," Obi-wan said.

Anakin snorted.

"I'd also like to establish that my most recent padawan saved the galaxy multiple times, and you can make of that what you will," Obi-wan continued.

"My padawan, believe I, was he," Yoda said, pointing his cane menacingly at Obi-wan.

"Can I just say that neither of you were very good teachers? And it was my padawan that finally helped him out?" Anakin said.

"Ashoka met him when he'd already become a Master and she's not even a Jedi in the first place! That doesn't count, you know it doesn't," Obi-wan said.

"Children! Are we really having this argument again?" Luke said, interrupting Anakin before he could launch into an angry diatribe.

Rey started laughing at the ashamed look on Obi-wan and Anakin's faces.

"I'm sorry about them," Luke was saying. "The Force has such a strong presence here that when they manifest they bring with them a large amount of old history and…personality."

Rey snorted again at the affronted look all three Masters were giving Luke, who was now ignoring them and smiling fondly at Rey.

"Anyway," Luke said. "First lesson: your friendships are important. And with the Force, you're never truly apart."

* * *

The ghosts didn't appear very often after that. Rey suspected Luke gave them a stern lecture. Rey herself was a little delighted that the sacred Jedi Masters of Old, that so much of the galaxy seemed to revere, were actually just as human as everyone else. Their volatility was a strange comfort.

It took a week for that human volatility to explode in her face.

Every day, Rey would wake at down to meditate with Luke for two hours. Then they would eat breakfast with Chewie, send a brief update to Leia who would send a brief update back, and then go meditate some more.

After lunch, Luke would take Rey through some traditional lightsaber forms. They didn't mix well with her current fighting style, relying more on defensive maneuvers then she was used to. This meant she had to unlearn quite a bit, but she was happy to do so. Lightsabers were dangerous and to use them offensively is a devastating act – leading to rather permanent consequences. Luke had explained this wryly while wiggling the fingers of his mechanical hand prompting Rey to push down a wave of nausea.

Every day Rey walked the path of her bond with Finn, taking note of his levels of pain and whether he was hungry or too cold or too hot. The third day she checked on him, he was awake and that familiar experience of loneliness which they had recognized in each other so quickly was sitting heavily on his mind. The next day, to her great relief, it had been lessened. She didn't know by whom but she was grateful nonetheless.

She got to know her father.

It was difficult, at first.

She wasn't used to being around so many affectionate beings at once. Chewie and Artoo were caring companions and took to her very quickly. Artoo would tell her funny stories from a childhood she barely remembered and show her holos of herself running around in only a diaper, covered in mud, while a long pair of legs chased after her. She would work with Chewie in the evenings adding unnecessary repairs to the ship, listening to all his stories about Han and his Wookie family, now off on adventures of their own. Luke would sit nearby with Artoo, who had so far been very unwilling to leave Luke's side, and laugh along with Rey at some of the more ridiculous things Han got up to with his ex-husband and fellow pirate, Lando Calrissian.

Luke, though, had been just as alone as she for the past ten years. It was awkward. Rey wasn't a good talker and Luke had a lot of fresh pain he didn't want to share with anyone. That he wasn't used to sharing with anyone.

They mainly conversed through the medium of Force-lessons. The relationship of student and teacher, at least, was more easily defined than that of an estranged father and daughter. They spent their time in the old Temple – a place so old and powerful that it made Rey a little nervous, and sitting in the middle of Luke's vegetable garden – where Rey felt very secure, indeed.

This was all fine and good until Rey woke up from a violent nightmare and went to meditate on the cliffside.

It wasn't doing any good and the storm building on the horizon was crackling with an energy she hadn't ever encountered before.

A thunderstorm. Rey had only heard of those. On Jakku, the rainstorms that happened every two years or so happened in a flash, a rapid dumping of moisture, before retreating back into the atmosphere. But here, there was thunder and flashes of purple light. It was nerve-wracking.

Luke found her, still very on edge from her nightmare of Kylo Ren and being abandoned again, staring out at the approaching clouds.

"Can I help?" he asked.

Rey shook her head. She's had nightmares before. Granted, never when she had so much connection to the Force and never about so terrifying a monster, but she's always taken care of herself. She can do so now.

"Pushing down what you're feeling isn't healthy, Rey," Luke said softly, sitting down next to her.

The wind was blowing fiercely. The stars hadn't yet been drowned out by the swiftly moving storm, but it was slowly getting darker.

"I'm not pushing anything down." Even as she said it, her mind was frantically trying to repair the edges of her control.

She would not be afraid. She wasn't afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. No one was in her head.

"Would you like me to meditate with you?" Luke asked.

"No," Rey said. When they meditated together, their minds came in contact through the Force. Rey did not want this. She didn't need his help in her own head.

"I'm here, Rey," Luke said, still in that incredibly gentle voice of his. "I'm here for you."

Rey watched a bolt of lightning strike through the dense clouds miles over the sea. The wind was so cold, like ice. Like the metal restraints on her arms. Like the snow freezing in Finn's hair. Like Kylo Ren's hand pushing into her mind and taking whatever he wanted.

She was crying now and Luke was crouched in front her, his hands up in a placating gesture, saying something, but she couldn't hear him or maybe couldn't understand the language he was using. His mouth moved and Rey could read her name on his lips.

She heard her name echoing, not in Luke's soft voice, but in Finn's terrified shout. She could feel his terror. Luke was fading from her sight and all she could see Finn's back as he walked away. Kylo's black gloved hand stretching out towards her face, he's going to strangle her mind. The snow was so cold and wet and Finn was dying, screaming out in pain. Everything was bright blood red or blinding blue. He's in her head. She's waiting for her family. They're never going to come. She's alone. She'll always be alone. She's scared. No. Rey tried to quash her terror, but it's growing. And growing. It's so cold. Desert nights filled with snowy trees. So cold.

Someone's warm hands were gripping her biceps and shaking.

"Rey!" It was Luke. Her dad. He was here.

"Rey," he was saying (shouting). "You have to stop. Your power is too great to control right now. Let go."

She glanced down at her body and there was a crackling light jumping off her skin. It was the lightening from the storm. It's taken a hold of , she pushed back from Luke and tumbled over. She stood and tried to wipe off the energy but it only sparked brighter. She could feel the power building up. The smell of ozone was suffocating her.

Luke was in front of her again, reaching for her arms. But once his hands made contact with her skin, it lashed out and struck him. Rey watched terrified as his body was thrown away from her, rolling violently to a stop near the cliff's edge.

He was up in an instant and making his way towards her again. The storm was closing in.

Every inch of Rey was convinced he shouldn't be allowed closer. She had no control. The same rage she had unleashed in her fight with the monster was clawing through her blood. She was going to hurt him.

As Luke approached she held out a hand to stop him, but that was a mistake. Guided by her terror and leftover lonely rage, the lightning shot off her fingertips. She could only gaze in horror as the deadly bolt struck out at her father.

But then, Rey felt a ripple in the Force and time seemed to slow down. Luke threw up both his arms, spreading them wide, as the lightning raced towards him. It struck his chest and Rey screamed.

He closed his arms over his sternum and fell to his knees. His body was shaking and the tips of his clothes and hair appeared to be burning. Just when Rey thought he was going to burst from the power, he raised his left hand to the sky and the lightning shot from his index finger, up into the clouds where it flashed and then rumbled and then disappeared.

The rain started to fall.

Rey collapsed on the grassy hillside.

* * *

Chewie had apparently heard Rey's scream and come to the rescue. He had found Luke, very weak and bleeding from his chest, struggling to carry Rey down to the ship, slipping pathetically on the stone and mud.

After Chewie had slapped a Bacta patch on Luke and gotten Rey's core temperature back to a normal level, he had done a lot of yelling about stupid Jedi and their stupid powers and how the galaxy would be a lot better if everyone just let the Force be. During his loud rant Rey had awoken to see a very sad Luke dripping and shivering, his hands bloody, petting a distraught Artoo's head.

"It's my fault, Chewie," she said. "No, don't yell, it's my fault."

Luke shot up at the sound of her voice, but Chewie pushed him back into his seat with an indignant roar.

"Rey, darling," Luke said, shoving off Chewie's hairy arm and trying to stand again. Chewie threw his arms up in frustration, turning away to clean up his medical supplies. "Are you okay? How do you feel? Are you warm enough?"

Rey was about to reply but the moment Luke tried to take a step he fell forward with a cry of pain. With Jedi-reflexes, she managed to catch him before he face-planted, but she had grabbed at his chest, inducing a sharp hiss as her arm pressed against the Bacta patch.

She twisted him around and laid him down, face up, on the deck. His face was pinched and he was bleeding through the Bacta. Chewie carefully lifted his body and set him down gently on the bench Rey had previously occupied.

Luke squinted up at Chewie's admonishing roar and then started laughing.

Rey and Chewie exchanged nervous looks.

"What's so funny?" she snapped. "Why are you laughing?"

Luke shook his head but quieted his guffaws.

"Well, it's a bit amusing," he wheezed, clearly still experiencing a great amount of pain. "I've been here before, you know."

He gestured at the bench with his mechanical hand.

"This is where Lando dropped me during our speedy getaway from Bespin, after Darth Vader chopped my hand off and then asked me to join him to rule the galaxy," he said, holding back strained chuckles.

Rey could've punched him.

Chewie punched the wall and the stormed off, roaring, "You can deal with him."

The storm raged on, but despite its garbage appearance, the Millenium Falcon held. Luke had fallen into a deep healing sleep, self-induced, apparently, because Jedi can do that. Rey had removed the Bacta patch. It wouldn't do any good all-bloodied up like that.

She had been washing the wound for several hours, watching it rapidly scab and wiping away the plasma and blood. It was a severe burn, more than anything, so she was more concerned with pulling the heat out and keeping it from getting infected then staving off the small-blood flow. Artoo had informed her that the flow rate wasn't anywhere near fatal levels and that Luke's healing sleep was replenishing the supply anyway.

The Force sure worked in mysterious ways.

"You're not nearly as strong as the Emperor was," Anakin's ghost said, popping into existence beside her. "At least, not yet."

Rey ignored him in favor of watching the slight rustle of hair under Luke's nose move with every breath.

"And, keep in mind, this isn't the first time a family member has severely injured him," he continued. "So, you know, he's used to it."

"That is possibly the worst thing you could've possibly said to me, right now," Rey ground out around her clenched jaw. "Right after comparing me to the Emperor, you go on to compare me to Darth Vader. You are the worst."

Anakin had the gall to laugh.

Why was everyone laughing?

"I'm trying to say that if Luke can forgive me for intentionally dismembering him he can almost certainly forgive you for accidentally losing a little control of your not-quite-developed power," Anakin said. "Also, he definitely loves you more."

"Yeah, and look where forgiving and loving has gotten him," Rey said bitterly. "Living alone on this cold island for ten years with only birds for friends."

"He saved the galaxy when he saved me," Anakin said sternly. "That's what loving got him. Others have made their own choices, Rey. He can't claim them. And neither can you. Which is what I suspect this is really about. You."

"You think I don't care about him?" Rey asked, sharply offended.

"Of course you care," Anakin said, rolling his eyes. "I think you're worried about that care. Kylo Ren was able to use Han Solo's care against him so he could murder him. Finn's care for you got him almost fatally injured. Your care for your father left you abandoned and alone and scared on a desert planet for ten years, trapped in that terrible place by your own sense of loyalty and the promise that one day he would find you again."

Anakin was joined by Obi-wan, who slowly manifested facing Rey with that same crinkly smile in his eyes from before.

"It's an ancient Jedi struggle, Rey," Obi-wan said. "For the Skywalkers, it's always been a bigger struggle than most, because of Anakin's origin. Your power is immense and so your control over it must be immense. So far only one of you has managed to find the balance."

"Leia counts," Anakin protested. "Just because she's not Jedi doesn't mean she doesn't have the same struggle."

"Alright," Obi-wan conceded, amused. "Only two of you. And only one Jedi. Perhaps it's generational."

Anakin attempted to hide his smile behind a glare. It didn't work.

"The point is, Rey," Anakin continued. "Is that the fact that you're so scared of your power isn't necessarily a bad thing. It shows your heart is in the right place. And if you follow your father's guidance, he can show you how caring isn't the threat it feels like right now."

"Strong, your father is," Yoda said, walking around the corner as if he had been there the whole time. "Left training, he did. Loyalty to friends, he has. His father, not kill, he did. Not alone, are you."

He walked back out.

"That's the nicest thing he's ever said about Luke," Obi-wan said, slightly stunned. Then he turned to Rey and grinned. "I think he likes you."

"Probably because she's adopted," Anakin said.

* * *

It was nearly mid-day by the time Luke woke from his sleep. Rey was helping Chewie with repairing the Falcon from the storm damage when Luke came out, gingerly walking with Artoo close on his heels, in case he should need the assistance.

"Come down, Rey," he called. "Let's go meditate."

Rey glanced at Chewie who gave a nod of support before taking the tools from her hands. She clambered off the ship and followed Luke onto the beach just below. She was very glad he had evidently decided on his own against climbing up the hill. She didn't have the emotional energy to convince him otherwise.

The beach was very familiar. So much sand. Her legs adjusted automatically to marching through the dunes. The walk was easier than it normally would be from the rain the night before.

Luke walked to nearly the edge of the tide before plopping down and reaching to tug off his boots. Rey, curious, followed suit. He rolled up his trousers and carefully stood, Artoo beeping at him to not overdo it. Luke patted his dome and smiled.

"Well," he said, placing his hands on his hips. "Let's go."

Rey watched befuddled as he walked into the surf until the water was well past his knees. She wondered why he had even bothered to roll his pants up if he was going to go that deep, but thought that asking would only lead to more confusion. She followed him into the waves. Wading in water was perhaps the strangest of new experiences yet.

When she reached him he held out his mechanical hand, which she latched onto eagerly, the roiling push of the waves on her legs making her a little nervous that she would topple right over. And she absolutely did not know how to swim.

"I grew up on a desert planet, too," Luke said, gazing out, past the sea shelf, to the horizon. "I didn't want that for you. It was a miserable experience, as I'm sure you're now well aware. But when you were young, I wanted to raise you where there were trees and flowers and great big lakes that reflected the sky. I went to a lot of trouble taking you to all sorts of places where you could play and explore as children should. Do you remember any of it?"

Rey's mind flipped through a host of fantasies she's returned to, time and time again. Dreams of mossy trees and gray mountains and yellow fields that she had always assumed were make-believe grew clearer with his words.

"I guess I always thought I was just making it up, that they weren't real places," she whispered, skimming her hand across the bubbly sea surface, watching a clump of seaweed drift by.

"At least you had that," he said. Rey briefly wondered if this was a part of aging, this constant melancholy that hung from Luke's eyes. She didn't remember it on any other adults she'd met, though. Perhaps it's just Luke.

"The first time I saw an ocean up close was when Han, Leia and I took a vacation to Naboo," Luke said. "That's where our mother was from. She was a queen and Senator there. Leia had been before, but I hadn't. Only places I'd been were Tatooine and wherever I was sent in the war. A vacation was a foreign concept to me. Still is to Leia, I expect."

Rey tried to imagine General Organa lying on a beach or hiking in some picturesque mountains and found it was as impossible as imagining Unkar Plutt singing a lullaby.

"Han wanted to go to the Lake Country but I wanted to see the ocean and since Leia is a very protective older sister despite having been born second, she sided with me over her husband. At first, I was quite disappointed with the trip. Flying through miles of sand dunes was an experience I never really wished to revisit, an experience I had hoped to have left behind after I enacted a rather merciless bit of justice against that slug slaver, Jabba. The grass on the dunes grew thinner the closer we got to the sea and only made it worse. But then the speeder crested over the last dune and I saw the shore and the ocean."

Rey realized that they were swaying slightly in the sea, as if their bodies were listening to a tune neither of their ears could hear. Her feet were now sturdily covered in sand below the water and she could feel the undercurrent rush against her ankles gently with every surge.

"Breathe," Luke said softly. "Just breathe."

Rey closed her eyes against the bright sun. The breeze caught on her loose hair. Her ribs held each breath carefully before slowly letting go. Her throat was warm with the moving air.

"What do you feel?" he asked

"It's warm," she said. "The water. It's warm. That is, I know the water is cool, not warm. But it feels warm. Does that make sense?"

Luke squeezed her hand.

"Yes, Rey darling," he said. "It does."

They stood there in the surf for a few more peaceful moments.

Tears started to fall down Rey's cheeks without her permission.

"I'm sorry," she said brokenly. "I should've listened. I was just so scared. I was so scared."

Luke pulled her to his side and wrapped his arms around her shoulders while she circled hers around his waist. She sobbed into his shoulder, feeling the grief of so many lonely years washing against her.

"I'm sorry, Rey," he said into her hair. "I should've looked for you, shouldn't have given you up so easily. No matter how painful it would've been, hoping you were still alive in spite of it all, I should've looked for you. Found you."

Rey weakly shook her head against him, but was unwilling to separate to properly tell him he didn't have to apologize.

Then it occurred to her that she didn't have to apologize either. That maybe they were both apologizing to people they didn't need to. That maybe they were saying "I'm sorry," to themselves.

"I'm here," he said. "Not leaving. We're in this together."

Rey watched in fascination as her whole being believed him.

He had taken her lightning bolt to his chest, knowing full well the pain it would bring, and now he was here, holding her in the cold but warm water.

"I missed you," she said. "Don't leave anymore."

"I won't. I missed you more than anything."

* * *

After two more weeks of healing time for Luke, Rey was ready to get back to the Resistance. Chewbacca was very relieved, having run out of things to do to his ship and getting tired of practically sitting on Luke to get him to rest. Artoo seemed eager to get in an X-wing, again.

Rey was happy to let Luke fly the ship. There was a funny boyish eagerness when Chewie had offered and she recalled that Luke Skywalker was an ace pilot before he was a Jedi hero.

She sat behind them with Artoo as they calculated the course to the Resistance's new headquarter base. (Not that the Resistance was big enough to require more than one base of operation.) The coded transmission they had received had taken Chewie a solid four hours to crack and he was still unsure if he had succeeded. Luke seemed to trust him, though, and Rey was inclined to agree.

The trip through hyperspace was a few hours, as the new base was nearly as remote as Ahch-to. Rey played sabacc with Artoo through most of it while Chewbacca caught Luke up with a lot of classified information Rey didn't want to be privy to.

When they arrived, her bond with Finn sparked, and she ran into the cockpit, exclaiming, "This must be the base!"

Luke was slightly pale but he smiled at her, with that same gentle sadness that Rey was coming to expect whenever he wanted to remind himself she was still alive.

"I wonder if Leia is going to slap me or stun me," he mused, stroking his beard.

Chewie laughed but Rey said, "So long as she avoids further maiming your chest."

"It's hard to know with her. She's quite ruthless."

"From all the stories I've heard about her, I thought she would be seven feet tall with sharpened teeth."

Chewbacca growled happily at this, saying, No, that's me.

"Leia made friends with the Ewoks," Luke said, as they entered atmosphere. "What that says about her, I don't know. But it certainly says something."

It was evening at the base. And cold.

"We'll have to get you your own cloak soon," Luke said, as Rey shivered under the roughly-woven poncho he had lent her. Rey wrapped her arms around him one more time before following Artoo and Chewie down the ramp.

The sun was bright and the air clear and dry. From one glance around she could see that it was a mountainous and colorful planet, that the terrain was bright and beautiful. When she looked down, she almost froze at the sight of the crowd gathered around the ship, but reminded herself that they definitely weren't waiting for her. She looked back to her father as he straightened his spine and pulled his hood over his head.

He grinned down at her and nodded encouragingly. She felt light with his support.

She turned back to the crowd, searching through all the anxious faces for just the one she'd been longing to see for weeks.

There he was, Finn, grinning, standing next to Leia. Commander Dameron was crouched at his side, holding back a very excited BB-8. She briefly noticed Admiral Antilles and Dr. Kalonia gathered around the General, before she took off.

"Finn," she shouted, elated. He ran up to meet her and she, completely forgetting that he might still be recovering from a back injury, launched herself into his arms. He was laughing and saying her name as he spun her around.

"You're alright," she said, happier than she's ever been. "Your back, it's alright?"

"Well, obviously," he said, smirking, still holding her up by her waist. She punched his shoulder as he gently set her down. She couldn't help but scoop him into a hug again, this time lifting his feet off the ground.

He yelped and clutched at her shoulders, still laughing.

She dropped him when BB-8 rolled into her calves, beeping very cheerfully about how seriously she had taken her solemn task to care for Finn in Rey's long absence.

"BeeBee, buddy," Commander Dameron said, grinning and jogging up to them. "Let her get a word in. Calm down."

"Okay," Finn said. "I get that she's talking about me, but I don't know what she's saying. Are you telling her about the time with the fruit? If you are, I'm going to tell her about the time you accidentally –"

He was cut off by a betrayed beeped gasp along with a handful of rather rude words, which had Dameron blushing and Rey guffawing.

"Alright," Dameron scolded, nudging his droid. "That's enough out you, you brat. You better come up with a good apology for later."

Finn crossed his arms, smug, while BeeBee twittered a bitter huff.

Rey jumped as she heard a man shout, "Alright, children! You've seen the circus! The One and Only Legendary Luke Skywalker now needs a Jedi Nap! Get back to your stations, you nosy scoundrels!"

Rey turned to the source of the voice and saw a brown-skinned man un-cup his hands from around his mouth while Leia said, "Lando, you're not nearly as funny as you think you are."

She saw her Father standing between them, laughing, his flesh hand clutched by both of Leia's, and Admiral Antilles standing next to Lando, smirking.

She grabbed Finn's hand and tugged him over.

"Dad," she said, her heart bursting at being able to say the name out loud, at finally getting the reward for her diligent patience. Luke's eyes snapped to hers immediately, eyes wide and loving.

"Rey," he said, ever gentle.

Leia swooped in for a hug before Rey could speak. When she pulled back, she said, "I've always wanted to be an Aunt."

For the span of few seconds, Rey found it difficult to breathe. Her family was quite big now. Finn's hand squeezing hers and Luke's exasperated voice saying, "Leia," pulled her back.

"Dad," she said again, tugging Finn to her side. "This is Finn."

Luke held out his hand and said, "Hello, Finn. I've heard all about your heroics. It's a real honor to meet you."

Rey could sense the heat of Finn's blush in the Force.

Later, after Finn had done his best to show Rey all the wonderful food and entertainment they had been missing out on in their rather miserable childhoods and BB-8 had shared all the gossip she had about the rampant hormonal emotions of all the organic beings on base and Commander Dameron had finally introduced himself properly and became Poe, Rey was ready for a little bit of solitude.

Solitude with Finn, that is.

Chewie had caved earlier under the combined powers of Lando Calrissian and Princess Leia to join them for a drink. So they sat under the Falcon for optimal quiet. Rey had brought out one of the blankets from the ship and they were both huddled under it, chattering about all the things they'd been learning in their respective Force training and sipping on a drink Luke insisted they try: hot chocolate.

Rey was trying not to think about the future and the responsibilities slowly being piled on her and her friend. She wondered if this was how her father felt, all those years, ago, as the weight of the galaxy creeped upon him.

But no, it wasn't. Luke didn't really have anyone, for years. He was the Last of the Jedi and the first of the New.

No one was in this fight alone.

It was a bewildering thought to Rey.

But that didn't mean she didn't believe it.


	4. Chapter 4

Their new Base planet was Finn's new favorite place in the galaxy. Beautifully carved mountain ranges lined the horizon and the air was always just on the edge of too dry, the sky always clear. Narrow canyons and glaciers rested between the steep cliffs. The soil was a dark beautiful hue of red, rich and healthy and always on the verge of frozen. The plant life was prickly but vibrantly green, the most common plant being an intensely blue flower that smelled so sweet Finn could taste it on his tongue.

It was far too cold for Rey to be entirely comfortable, but she didn't complain to Finn about it much, sharing in his delight of the green landscape and the freedom of open skies. She and Poe instead would hide their grievances until Finn had vacated the vicinity, so as not to ruin his fun. Finn, not being an idiot, noticed their discomfort and, frankly incessant, whining, but left them to it. Many members of the old Rebellion were found shaking their heads at the youngsters, muttering menacing threats about a place called Hoth and things like, "You don't know just how good you have it, bunch'a spoiled brats."

Finn spent what little free time he had exploring what he could. The unregulated environment was such a fresh experience, every small thing about it falling in stark contrast to what he had always known. The air wasn't still and uncontaminated, new breezes and scents and textures always shifting across the earth's surface, brushing against his arms and cheeks. The ambient noise was never quiet, there was no repetitive white noise, predictable and numbing. Instead, the sounds of life were nearly cacophonous at times to the untrained ear, birds cackling, insects humming, withered dried up trees falling, wind through spiny leaves, through narrow canyons and crevasses, whistling and laughing and roaring. Though there was little precipitation, the ice in the earth was always melting and freezing, causing huge groans to rumble underneath the topsoil and alongside weathered slopes.

And the colors, the colors were magnificent. There were so many and they changed throughout the day, at different altitudes, in the sun or double moonlight or shade. Colors and actual light, Finn cherished. He would wake up from nightmares of condensed sickly glows, starched and lifeless and _clean_ , to mornings of so much depth and luster he could hardly breathe for it. Frequently he found himself wishing he never had to close his eyes again. The galaxy was just so beautiful and here he was, the being who had emerged from the broken body of FN-2187, able to witness it.

* * *

"Finn," he heard a voice whisper. "Finn, my young padawan, it's time to rise."

Finn felt an affectionate squeeze on his upper arm and opened his eyes. He squinted up at the sad kindly face of Master Skywalker, smiling fondly down at him.

"Luke?" He asked, voice rough with sleep.

"Come, Finn," Luke said, rising from his crouch on the barracks floor, far too agile and smooth for a man his age. "Lessons start early today."

Finn, glanced out the window above his bunk at the new gray dawn. The rest of his unit was still sleeping, snoring, and blissfully unaware of an old Jedi intent on disturbing Finn's sleep.

"What time is it?" Finn asked, swinging his legs from the cot and reaching for his boots.

"No matter," Luke said, a hint of amusement coloring his tone. "Time for lessons, as I said."

"Uh-huh," Finn muttered, rubbing his eyes and yawning. "And the reason for this particular wake-up call is…?"

Luke ignored Finn's prompting.

"Come one, young one," he tossed Finn's coat on the cot beside him and then gently pushed a fuzzy hat over Finn's head, making to sure to roll it over his ears. A feeling of deep affection blossomed in Finn's chest, blushing and warming all over from the simple action. He was getting more and more accustomed to being cared for, but sometimes it still took him by surprise when Leia would monitor his sleeping schedule, or Rey would sneak him an extra portion of desert, or Poe would greet him with enthusiastic hugs and sometimes even a kiss or two on the forehead and cheek. Luke in particular was keen on being there for him, for him and Rey. Finn, though still longing desperately to find his own family, felt properly adopted by the pair of them.

Finn quickly finished dressing and met Luke outside barracks, practice saber on his belt and blaster strapped to his thigh. He glanced around for Rey, but Luke didn't appear to be waiting for anyone else.

"Let's go on a walk," Luke said. "I've got a special lesson planned for today."

So they set off. They walked past the edge of the base, climbing in altitude, and started on the well-worn path to a favorite overlook of the Resistance fighters who needed a little break. They hiked up the trail, but when they reached the makeshift bench at the top, Luke continued past it. For nearly an hour, they delved further into the foothills, climbing higher and higher, until Finn was starting to feel the elevation affect the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. They reached a rocky plateau above a steep bluff, hidden behind a few burnt red buttes and arches, just as the sun properly rose over the mountain range, igniting the soil with fiery colors and making the brush and treetops glow.

"We'll sit here," Luke said, walking over to the cliffside. He gracefully dropped into a cross-legged meditative position and gestured for Finn to join in the space in front of him. Finn, curious, walked over and gingerly sat down on the rough ground.

"You gonna tell me what this is all about, now?" he asked, watching the amused blue of Luke's eyes grow brighter in the molten morning light.

Luke smiled and said, "I was hoping you would tell me."

Finn sent a half-hearted glare Luke's way and crossed his arms, saying, "That's a bit cryptic."

Luke laughed and his hair, gray and golden, shimmered as his head shook.

"Sorry," he said. "But, compared to my old Masters, I'm always clear as day."

Finn glanced over Luke's shoulder, worried that some Force-ghosts were lingering as they tend to when Luke hints at the various ways they fell short in his education, but all he saw was a landscape awakening and wispy clouds swirling then vanishing in the distance.

"What I mean," Luke continued, "Is that I believe there are some concerns weighing on you. I would like to offer my assistance if you have need of it. Or want it."

Finn immediately seized up, his body reacting before his mind at the threat of failure, of not measuring up to a superior's expectations, and all the implications behind that. His gaze fell on the lines of his palm and he traced the changing hues from thumb to pinky with his eyes, breathing deep.

"I don't -" he began but cut himself off.

"You are allowed to ask for help, Finn," Luke said.

Finn swallowed and lifted his head to meet Luke's eyes, latching onto the bright color and Luke's soft green presence in the Force. He waited a moment, letting the gusty wind cool his face, heated from the exertion of the hike, letting the sounds of an unrestrained and uncontrolled wilderness wash over his primary senses, and letting the colors of all the life around him flash and sparkle a moment before his secondary sight.

He took a breath and looked down at eroded sand and stone in front of him, digging his hand in the smooth earthy soil.

"Alright," he said, not looking back up. "I've just been wondering, what all this means. Why I have this ability. If it's even worth all that much to the Resistance in the first place. And I want to know - I _really_ want to know - where I'm from. I want to belong somewhere, but I have no idea where I could possibly start. I don't want to be what the First Order made me, but I can't escape it, no matter how I try."

He shuttered and asked in a small voice, "Will that be the only place I fit? Will that be the only family I have? I mean, _family._ Where I come from. Am I only a product, a son, of the First Order?"

After a few moments of silence, he risked a look at Luke. The compassion was expected but it felt good all the same.

"Finn," he said. "I don't have the answers to your questions. Much of what you seek is up to you. But I think I can offer you assurance on one front. On the subject of your abilities, from my limited perspective, I can promise you that they are great and significant. _How_ they are great and significant will, again, ultimately be up to you. All I can tell you is what I know. Would you like to hear it?"

Finn nodded.

"I sensed your defection," Luke began. "From light-years across the galaxy, I sensed the moment you released yourself from that abuse, from that prison. It was a bright spark. It was as if the Force itself had been reignited. Never had I felt such hope. That is, until a day later when you reignited the spark inside of Rey, just one step in the chain of events all stemming from that one drop you let fall into the fabric of the galaxy. That one drop of pure goodness—"

Finn had to interrupt.

"No, sir, that wasn't _goodness,_ " he protested. "At least not purely. I was terrified and ready to run. Max Kanata saw it, she saw I was a runner—"

"You are not a monolith, Finn, and neither are your motivations or actions," Luke said sternly. "But even if you were acting out of concern for your own survival, I suppose the question I have for you is this: why is that not still goodness?"

Finn had no answer.

"Listen to me, Finn," he said. "Survival is an essentially good act. The Force wills survival because the Force is the energy that flows through all _living_ things. You are alive, Finn. You are as alive as that blooming bush. You would not call that bush selfish for sprouting, growing, taking in nutrients, and asking for more with a bright flower. Tell me, Finn, what color is that flower?"

"Blue," Finn said, thoroughly confused by where this conversation was going. The flower was very obviously blue.

"No, Finn," Luke said, "What _color_ is that flower?"

Finn widened his eyes in understanding. He focused inward, on his sight and on the delicate petals shivering in the breeze. At once, he saw a liquid silver start dripping from its form, reflecting light with its every breath.

"Silver, I think," he said. "With hints of black."

"You are very sensitive to color, Finn," Luke remarked, clearly impressed. "All I got was gray and I've been concentrating on it since we first arrived on this planet."

"What does that have to do with anything, though?" Finn asked, uncomfortable with the praise.

"You asked what the point of your abilities were, and I'm here to tell you, absolutely, it is to do what you did just now."

"What, look at flowers?"

"Yes, of course. Why not? It's not just flowers though, is it? It's every living thing you've ever encountered. You can see life. You can see its essence. You can see its energy, through very little effort, I might add. You can walk through dense fog and unrelenting smoke, clearsighted and strong. You are intrinsically of value with the conscious life you fought to possess for yourself when you rescued Poe from his torturers. You are also of value because you can see beyond and through what others cannot."

Luke reached forward and grabbed Finn's hand in both his own.

"'Meaning' is for you to decide. How you want to use this vision of yours is up to you. But whatever you decide, I'm here. You're not alone in this quest. You aren't the first one to go on it, in fact. Why do you think I spent so many years on that backwater island, surrounded only by ghosts?"

Finn squeezed Luke's hand tightly, staring down at their clasped fingers. The long scars on his back and shoulder were starting to sting.

"You're not alone anymore, Finn. You don't have to do this alone," Luke repeated before ducking his head to catch Finn's eyes. "And as for your family, I think we can work on a solution together. If it's a priority to you, it's a priority to me. I understand at least partially how you feel. I mostly became a Jedi in the first place to feel closer to my father - don't look like that, it was before I knew who he was." He added with a smile.

"In all honesty, dear Finn," Luke said, "I'll start planning now. Perhaps a covert ops mission with my new padawans will be a decent first real-world lesson. We can hack into your old archives, trace the information back, follow where it leads. We'll find them, Finn. We'll try."

Finn, though overwhelmed with numerous positive emotions, couldn't help but smirk and say, "Do or do not, there is no try."

"Yes, well," Luke said, sitting up again and tossing his hair back with a pompous twist of his head, looking very much like the General when she starts to moralize, "Some things are taken completely out of context and lack the complexity of understanding necessary to properly respond to a multitude of situations; which is to say, dogma and absolutes are only inflexible concerning very certain and universal truths."

"So old Jedi proverbs are just bantha shit."

Luke burst out laughing and said between chuckles, "Not entirely, no, but I'm glad you have a healthy sense of skepticism."

Finn realized he was still clinging to Luke's hand but still couldn't bring himself to let go. Perhaps sensing this, Luke reached forward, wrapped his metal hand around the back of Finn's neck and pulled Finn's head down to rest his shoulder. Finn went willingly, encircling his free arm around Luke's back and breathing deeply.

"We'll find them, Finn," he said. "You were from somewhere before you were from the First Order. And, for what it's worth, now you're also from here."

Finn let a few tears leak from his eyes and didn't ask where 'here' was. When he opened his senses and saw Luke's presence in the force, the same deeply warm green as ever, he felt and knew the heat that flowed across the energy between them. It was love. Luke loved him.


	5. Chapter 5

"They'll be fine," Luke said.

Leia glanced up from her caf to take in Luke's still form standing at the window of her quarters, staring out onto the busy tarmac below. She made sure to make a full production of rolling her eyes at his back, knowing the more intention she put behind it, the sharper he would feel it.

"Hmmm," she said and returned to swirling her hot drink and searching its steam for answers and meaning.

Only caf had meaning now.

See, Luke, not completely nihilistic.

"What?" he asked, shooting her a slightly offended glare. "What? You don't think they'll be fine?"

"Course I do," she said. "Just as you said. They'll be fine."

"Right," he said, with conviction.

A few anxious moments passed.

"But you definitely think they'll be alright?"

Leia couldn't help laughing at his antics.

"Brother-of-mine, you need to sit down and relax. Have some caf, meditate, take a nap, I don't know. Just stop worrying. It's a cut-and-dry mission. They're both highly capable. More capable, in fact, than you were when you first leapt into a war."

Luke continued to send her offended glares before sighing and slumping down into the seat across her desk.

"Yes, well, I didn't exactly have any good parental figures left to stop me from being so stupid," he grumbled.

"You had me and Han, didn't you?" she asked.

"Neither of you had any good parental figures left, either."

"Well that was uncharacteristically cold," she teased, taking a sip from her mug and setting it down. "True, of course. We were severely lacking in proper guidance."

Luke slumped further in his seat and his eyes found the window again, as if Finn and Rey would have shown up in the few seconds he hadn't been standing at the pane.

"Han sort of adopted them, too," Leia observed, amused as always by the endearing nature of her good-hearted brother. "He had no idea Rey was your long lost daughter, but he was very quickly attached to both of them. He always had a good nose for heroes, I suppose."

Luke was blushing.

"Come on," Leia said, laughing. "You've already signed the papers with Rey and you've practically signed them with Finn. The three of you make quite the lovely Jedi family. I'm just glad I finally get to be the Cool Aunt after being denied all these years."

Luke sat forward and pointed accusingly at her smirking face.

"You're making fun of me now," he said, "but don't pretend like you're not just as guilty when it comes to that pilot, Dameron. Talk about practically adopting, dear sister."

Leia stopped smirking and felt her own face heating.

After they both eyed each other for several minutes, Leia gave in with a groan and petulantly waved her hand so Luke's carefully combed hair stood on end.

He laughed and did the same to her, saying, "If you were a Jedi, you would know that's an improper use of the Force."

"But I'm not. I just don't know any better."

"I guess we'll just keep sly comments about our respective children, so to speak, to ourselves from now on," Luke said with an exaggerated air of generosity, folding his hands in his lap.

"We can't let the whole world know we have our favorites, we have to be above that sort of thing," Leia agreed, philosophically.

"Favorites," Luke said, smiling so softly and affectionately, Leia knew he was thinking of Rey's delighted whoops in the X-Wing and Finn's precious grin when he was showing off his expansive tactical education.

"Favorites," Leia said, thinking of the nervous hug a certain commander had requested just the other day, stammering like a child in front of a cherished teacher. "Indeed."


End file.
